Love at First Spell: A Witch Cozy Mystery (Fairy Falls Mystery Book 1) Read online

  LOVE AT FIRST SPELL

  SAMANTHA SILVER

  BLUEBERRY BOOKS PRESS

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Epilogue

  Untitled

  Also by Samantha Silver

  About the Author

  CHAPTER 1

  T he last thing I remembered before the taxi hit me was squeezing my eyes shut and thinking that I didn’t want to die.

  I didn’t want to die.

  And I didn’t want the dog whose life I was trying to save to die, either.

  Ten minutes earlier, if you’d told me that was how my life was going to end, I wouldn’t have believed you. I was half-walking, half-running down Madison Avenue, trying to get back to the office before a one o’clock meeting. It was twelve fifty-seven, and I was still at least five minutes away. This being New York during the lunch rush, going by foot was still more efficient than hopping into a cab.

  This was a make-or-break meeting to get one of the biggest companies in the country on board with EWP Advertising. This was what I’d worked so hard for. If I managed to land this client I’d be well on my way to earning that spot as a partner at the firm. I had been with EWP ever since I’d graduated from Harvard Business School with a degree in marketing, and I had immediately soared up the ranks of the company. I was now twenty-eight years old and had my eyes set on being the youngest partner the firm had ever seen.

  So when my assistant Jessica called me twelve minutes ago and told me the company’s head of marketing was coming in for a one o’clock meeting that she’d forgotten to tell me about, I panicked. I had been in line at Lady M, ordering a congratulatory cake — they did the best crepe cakes — to be delivered to another client during my lunch break. Unfortunately, Lady M was about a fifteen-minute walk from the office. Normally I would have just sent Jessica down to order the cake herself, but I wanted to get a bit of fresh air and figured it would be fine.

  It wasn’t fine.

  I was going to be late, and if I was late I was going to lose the client. I couldn’t lose this client. Sweets Chocolates was one of the biggest companies in the country, and my key to another promotion, the biggest promotion of my life. I knew the partners were looking to bring someone else in later on this year, and landing this client was going to be my ticket to the corner office.

  Unfortunately, I could practically see that metaphorical ticket slipping out of my grasp and blowing away in the wind.

  My phone rang as I crossed West 45th Street, and I pressed it to my ear. It was Jessica.

  “Are you coming?” she asked. “Alton Kristal just showed up.”

  “I’ll be there in three minutes,” I said, panting. “Any way you can stall him, or entertain him until I get there? Do anything it takes. I’m coming.”

  I was only three blocks away. I picked up the pace, feeling a layer of sweat on my forehead. New York in July was humid and unpleasant at the best of times, but now, in the middle of the day, running down the street with the heat from the sun boring down on the concrete really made it feel like I was in the middle of an oven.

  I was just about at the corner of West 46th and Madison, barely registering the woman walking a dog in front of me, when right as I passed her the retractable leash she was walking him on snapped. The dog immediately realized he was free and started to run.

  Right into the middle of the intersection.

  Everything from that point on seemed to happen in slow motion. The dog bounded into the middle of the street, completely oblivious to the traffic. At the same time, a yellow cab sped toward the intersection, trying to make the yellow light.

  The taxi’s tires squealed as he tried to stop and avoid the dog, but he was moving too fast. The dog stopped and looked back at the owner; he was about to get hit. I was only a few feet away, and I reacted without thinking. I rushed forward and dove at the dog, shoving him out of the way.

  At the same time, I squeezed my eyes shut, knowing the taxi was about to hit me. I was going to die, here on the streets of New York. I was going to miss that meeting, and I was never going to get that promotion. I would never be the youngest partner in EWP’s prestigious history as one of the best advertising firms in New York.

  And the last thing I thought was that I didn’t want to die. I squeezed my eyes shut and wished for something, anything that would save my life.

  A second later, the sickening sound of metal being crushed reached my ears. I braced myself, but there was no pain. I didn’t feel anything.

  I couldn’t hear anything, either. Everything was silent. Was I dead? And then, all of a sudden, it was like I came back to earth.

  “Are you alright?” a man in a suit asked, making his way carefully toward me.

  The woman whose dog had run off rushed past me and grabbed him, sobbing as she held him to her only a few feet away.

  Bystanders crowded around me. “Someone call 9-1-1,” I heard someone say.

  “You saved him. Thank you for saving Felix. I’m so glad he’s ok.”

  I was still dazed, my head spinning, and frankly a little bit surprised that I wasn’t dead, or even hurt.

  “What happened?” I found myself asking, blinking rapidly as I took in the scene.

  The front of the taxi was crushed, like it had gone straight into a wall. The driver was getting out of the car, visibly confused. The man trying to help me had a hand on my elbow, like he was trying to guide me out of the intersection, but without wanting to actually move me in case I was hurt.

  “You saved him,” the dog’s owner repeated. “You pushed him out of the way.”

  “What happened to the taxi?” I heard a voice ask. I couldn’t help but ask the same thing. What had it hit? It couldn’t have been me. I was fine.

  I started to scramble to my feet and realized one of the kitten heels I was wearing had broken off. Ugh. My knees were both bleeding, and the left sleeve of my blouse was torn. There was dirt from the street all over it.

  And I’d missed my meeting.

  But at least the dog was ok. I reached over and patted him, a little moment of normalcy. The dog — some sort of Spaniel cross — panted happily, as if thanking me for saving his life.

  “Thank you so much,” the owner said, and I looked at her closely for the first time. She couldn’t have been older than sixteen, with big wide eyes filled with tears. “I don’t know what I would have done if anything happened to him. Are you ok?”

  “I think I’m fine, thanks,” I said, looking down at myself. I really did just have superficial scratch wounds, probably caused when I dove onto the pavement to shove the dog out of the way of the cab.

  “What did you do to my car?” the taxi driver shouted then, having obviously come back to his senses. “You’ve wrecked it.”

  He had a typical New York accent and was in his fifties and bald, with a bit of a beer belly covered in a tattered gray t-shirt. He walked toward me aggressively, and I stepped back instinctively, wit
h the man who had helped me up standing between us.

  “Hold on, buddy. Obviously this woman didn’t do anything to your cab. It must have been wrecked when you hit her.”

  “It wasn’t. You think I can get away with driving a wrecked cab through New York?”

  “Yeah, I do. Now come on, get a move on. You just about hit this woman, be grateful you didn’t.”

  The cabbie and the other guy argued for another minute or so, before the cabbie got back into the car and sped off.

  “Do you need someone to call you an ambulance?” the man who’d come to my defense asked, but I shook my head.

  “Thanks, but I’m ok, really. It’s just a scratch. I have to get back to work. Thanks for the help.” I flashed the man a smile, and one to the teenage girl who was still clutching her dog to her as if for dear life, and then pushed through the crowd to get back to work.

  I burst through my office door five minutes later, with Jessica immediately standing up. “Where were you?” she hissed. Then, looking me up and down and taking in what had happened to me, her mouth dropped open. “What happened to you? Are you alright?”

  “I’m fine. Get the first aid kit from the bathroom,” I said. “Is Alton still here?”

  Jessica nodded. “Yeah. But you’re...not going to like what happened.”

  I immediately turned on my heel — the movement was pretty awkward since that shoe didn’t have a heel anymore — and walked back down the hall to the conference room. Peering through the window, I saw Alton Kristal, listening intently as Louise McPherson animatedly pitched the company’s services.

  “Damn it,” I swore, kicking my shoe down the hall. Tears came to my eyes, but I blinked them back. I was a professional, and I wasn’t about to start crying outside the conference room. I was going to go into my office with the first-aid kit and do it then, with the door closed.

  I went and grabbed my shoe, then walked back toward my office, one-heeled, completely humiliated.

  “Sorry,” Jessica said with a sympathetic look as she handed me the first aid kit.

  “Give me ten minutes, and then I’m back on schedule,” I said to Jessica, who nodded. I moved past her and closed the door to my private office, then shut the blinds. I wished there was a way to soundproof the place, too.

  I sat down in the plush leather chair behind my glass-topped steel desk, put my head in my hands, and sobbed.

  CHAPTER 2

  I dabbed at my knees with a sterile pad, wincing as I tried to rub away the tiny bits of gravel stuck in the skin. I’d had a little two-minute cry, and now I had to get myself back together. I still had an entire afternoon to get through, after all.

  Something about the crash didn’t sit right with me. The front of the taxi hadn’t been wrecked before the crash. I’d seen it clearly. I could picture it in my mind. After all, when you were fairly certain it was the last thing you were going to see in your life, you had a tendency to see things pretty clearly. So how had the whole front of it been crushed like it had hit an invisible brick wall? Besides, I clearly heard the crunch.

  So what had happened?

  I didn’t have time to think about that right now. That didn’t matter. What did matter was that I’d lost my biggest client, and that Louise McPherson, a scummy ladder-climber who had no qualms about stepping on people on the way up, had gotten her claws into him instead.

  I could just imagine her gloating face the next time I saw her in the break room.

  Jessica buzzed my phone from reception.

  “Yes?” I asked.

  “Mr. Stronach is on his way in to see you,” she said, and I leaned my head against the back of the chair and sighed. I could feel the first pangs of a stress headache coming on.

  “Ok, thanks,” I said, plastering on a smile as my office door opened a moment later.

  Jeremy Stronach was one of the senior partners of the firm. With a thousand-dollar haircut, Armani suits, a house in the Hamptons, and a brownstone here in the city, he was the picture-perfect image of the big-shot city ad executive. And right now, he looked mad.

  “Did you miss your meeting with Alton Kristal?” he asked in a low voice, his brow furrowed.

  “I did,” I admitted. I wasn’t about to make excuses; I hoped that by taking responsibility for the mistake I’d be let off a little more easily.

  “And what on earth was more important than speaking with him?”

  “I got hit by a car on my way back to the office,” I said, showing him the sleeve that had been ripped, along with the skin beneath it.

  “I don’t care if Tom Hanks himself ran you over, you don’t miss a meeting with Alton Kristal for anything, you got me?”

  “Yes,” I replied contritely, nodding. I knew arguing right now would only make things worse.

  “We’re just lucky that Louise was here to take over for you. You know, she signed him on as a client with the firm.”

  “I’m glad to hear it,” I said, hoping my voice didn’t betray the fact that I was anything but.

  “I’m very disappointed in you, Mina,” Jeremy said, shaking his head. “You’ve showed so much promise here in your short time at the firm, and I’d like to bring you on as a partner one day, but missing a meeting with such an important client...”

  He trailed off, and I breathed in sharply, knowing what was coming next. “Maybe you’re just not ready for that next step. This shows you just don’t quite have what it takes to be a partner here yet. A few more years of maturity, though, and I’m sure you’ll be an excellent asset.”

  I opened my mouth to argue, but he held up a hand. “No, I don’t want to hear it. You just let one of the most important businessmen in the whole country sit in the conference room because you messed up your schedule. That’s inexcusable. I don’t care what reason you gave, you should have been in here, ready and waiting for him two hours before. I’m finished talking about this.”

  I nodded, not trusting myself to speak, and Jeremy Stronach turned and left the room. Jessica came in a moment later.

  “I’m really sorry,” she stammered. “I...I only realized now that this was all my fault. I forgot about your one o’clock when I told you it was fine to go out at twelve thirty.”

  Jessica looked down at the ground, obviously expecting to be fired.

  “It’s ok,” I told her with a small smile. “I’m...yeah, I’m not happy. But what’s done is done, and there’s nothing else to do now but to pick myself up and keep going.”

  Jessica nodded. “Thank you. I’m sorry. I really am.”

  I nodded again. “Yeah. Can you reschedule my meetings for this afternoon? I’m really not up to seeing anyone right now.”

  “Of course.”

  Jessica slinked out of the office and I sunk my head in my hands. My stomach felt like a pit about to envelop me whole.

  I had just cost myself the biggest promotion of my life. I mean, in the grand scheme of things, I had saved that dog’s life, and if given the chance to do things over I wouldn’t have changed a thing. And I knew there were a lot of people out there who would be mad at Jeremy Stronach for not giving me any leeway for having been hit by a car. But this was New York City. If you were expected to be at a meeting, you were expected to be at a meeting.

  I could also have been mad at Jessica, who only told me about my meeting when I was at the cake shop.

  But ultimately, I had to take responsibility. And my choices meant I wasn’t going to get that promotion. At least not yet.

  I sighed again as I put some Polysporin on the scratches and got back to work. I kept reminding myself I was only twenty-eight. I had an undergrad degree from Harvard Business School and an MBA from Princeton. I lived in the perfect city for a young professional, and I was going to climb that career ladder all the way to the top. I had to remind myself that I still had years ahead of me. I didn’t have to be there by the time I was thirty.

  For a split second, I wished I had someone I could talk to about this, but I pushed back the thou
ght and dove into my work.

  I t was quarter after seven by the time I decided I had done enough and it was time to go home. I could grab some takeout on the way. I left the office, waving at the janitors who were just starting their rounds as I headed down the elevator and to street level.

  “Excuse me,” a voice said from behind me, and I turned to find myself staring at one of the great many characters that lived here in the Big Apple. He was tall, with an elongated face and pointed ears, like some sort of elf. His eyes were blue like ice, and his brown hair was ruffled, like he hadn’t brushed it in ages. “Were you the woman who was hit by the car earlier this afternoon?”

  My spidey senses began tingling. Had this man followed me here to the office and been waiting for me ever since?

  “I have to go home,” I said, clutching my bag closer to myself and rushing toward the street. I really hoped a cab was coming right now.

  “I don’t mean you any harm,” he said, holding up his hands. “I just want to talk to you.”

  “Yeah, so did Ted Bundy,” I muttered as I hailed down a yellow cab. The sight of it reminded me of the experience earlier that day. How had the damage to the front end of that taxi been caused? Why was there the sound of metal crunching against something when the cab should have hit me?

  Maybe I was just going crazy. Maybe I was imagining things, and none of that had happened. The cab just happened to come to a stop before hitting me. That made much more sense.

  Either way, it had been a hard day. I was going to go home, grab some Chinese food from the place across the street, then try and get a few hours’ sleep before I went back to work and tried to restore my reputation tomorrow.

  CHAPTER 3

  I was in the office again by seven the next morning, having treated myself to a Venti Starbucks instead of my usual Grande. Jessica came in at nine, and at nine-fifteen she called through to my office phone.

  “You’ve got a visitor here. Should I send him in?”