War-N-Wit, Inc. - The Witch (4 page)

I was in a foul mood for more reasons than
one. In one of those serendipitous things that sometimes happen, I was a good
cook though I really didn't
like
to
cook. Most folks who don't like cooking don't do it and aren't good at it, but
somehow I seemed to know instinctively what went with what, how to modify a
recipe to make it better, adjust cooking times up or down. Stacy could do it,
too, but she actually did like to cook. Scott was the only person on earth who
always tried to improve on my cooking skills, probably because his mother
sucked
as a cook and he had no idea how
things were actually supposed to taste.

In any event, he didn't like my meatloaf.
This recipe, however—oh, my God.
This was going to taste
like crap,
way
too much sour in the
mix, meatloaf needed brown sugar mixed with tomato sauce, sweet and tangy, not
this—
nauseating
blend of mustard and
garlic. And then there was that little
niggle
in the
back of my mind, the urge to run to the office
right now
and see if Chad Garrett had made an appearance.

Needless to say, the evening was not a
spectacular success. Scott's frequent exclamations confirming this was how
meatloaf was supposed to taste didn't help things a damn bit.

"What's the matter?" he asked,
rinsing the plates and loading the dishwasher. He was good about
that,
I had to give it to him.

"Got a headache," I said.

He gave his imitation of what he thought
was a sexy sneer. "No room for headaches tonight, I've got plans for
you."

"Change 'em," I said quickly.

He looked startled. "You mean you
really have a headache? Sorry, hon, I thought you were just playing around.
Here, go sit down and I'll give you a neck rub."

"Hell, no!"
I exclaimed, before I could stop myself. "You
hurt
when you rub my neck or my
back,
you do it way too hard."

"Just trying to get the kinks out of
the muscles," he defended himself. "Men want the best for the women
they love."

Where it came from, I don't know. But I
couldn't have stopped myself if my life depended on it. "Yeah, well, I
don't even like you."

I had such a reputation for straight-faced
kidding that it didn't even
phase
him. I could and
actually did say some absolutely outrageous things at times, at home and in the
office and everybody was sure I was kidding, because
nobody
ever said exactly what they were actually thinking, now did
they? I found it a very handy skill.

"I know, honey, I know. I don't like
you either, you know." He glanced at me appraisingly. "Hey, you want
me to go home and let you take some Tylenol and go to bed?"

"Yes, actually, that would be
lovely," I said, plastering on a pitiful expression and rubbing the back
of my own neck.

"Well, okay.
If
you're sure.
Call you in the morning, honey."

"Fine," I said, locking the
deadbolt behind him. I stared thoughtfully at the door. You know what? Maybe I
really
didn't
like him. And maybe he
didn't really like me either.

Chapter Six

I had a bad hair day the next morning, and
then I changed clothes three times because I had a bad outfit day too. So I was
a little bit later than usual when I blew into the office. The mail was already
there, so I made myself go get my coffee and open the mail before checking the
emails, and yes, between the Saturday and Sunday spam and junk mail and
Monday's real emails, there was a long list waiting. And I purposely made
myself not look down the list first to see if there was one from war@war-n-wit
or chad7777@hotmail. This served the purpose of keeping me in a
very
heightened state of anticipation.
Nothing.

Of course there wasn't. What had I
expected? See, it was a very good thing I hadn't ruined my day off by running
into the office to check, now
wasn't
it? I put
thoughts of Chad Garrett out of my mind and turned back to business.

When there was still nothing by Friday, I
clicked for a new email and sat looking at the blank screen for a while before
typing.

Oh, I see. You've found another email flirt
to catch your fancy. Well, come back and visit if you get bored, it breaks up
the day.

Then I hit the send button before I could
change my mind. The next week passed.
Nothing.
What a
very good thing I was such a sensible girl because of course he'd just been
flirting on a slow day. What a very good thing I was engaged to such a steady,
reliable man.

It was the next Wednesday when I found a
chad7777 in my inbox. Heart racing, I clicked.
An internet
link?
Two and a half weeks and he sends me a freakin'
internet
link? Which I couldn't pull up
because the secretaries didn't have internet? I forwarded it to Anderson's box and raced
into his office. Anderson
was still at the beach, not an unusual event. I pulled it up and debated. What
if it was a virus and I infected the office? Then the office would just be
infected. I pulled it up and was rewarded with an advertisement for Viagra.
Whoopee. Shit.

I went back to my desk. He'd gotten a bug
in his computer and it was spamming. And yeah, I was disappointed he hadn't
returned to flirt, but he was a PI and one thing he didn't need was a bug in
his system that he didn't know about. I clicked the reply button.
"Darlin', you got a bug in your system or you tryin' to tell me you need
Viagra?" I went back to work. After lunch, chad7777 made an appearance.

I'm
super sorry about that, I've been on a couple of very tough, very long skip
traces and I seem to catch all sorts of crap when I have to flip around so much
on the internet. Nothing on this one, is there? No, there's no flirt can touch
you, baby girl, just had a mass of work out of the office I had to take care
of. I'm about done and then I'll be back for some serious flirting. P.S. Do I
need Viagra?

I laughed. I couldn't help it. Even though
my first thought was to wonder if he thought I was so stupid I hadn't caught
the "Sent from my Blackberry" on the bottom of some of the emails
from that marathon email day.

You'd
know about that better than me. Certainly you don't need it on my account. But
I know in your business you don't need a bug you don't know about and I didn't
know how long it'd take you to trip on it if somebody didn't tell you.

There was nothing for the rest of the week.
And then, on Monday morning, as though he'd never been gone, he was back.
In full pursuit.
I could always tell when he was actually in
the office because those emails were long and conversational, and when he was
in a tearing hurry he let me know he was around with the funny little emails
that proliferate along the internet, including one or two that were more than a
little off-color and had me hitting delete, delete in a red-hot hurry. All
office email's subject to being monitored, you know. Though all the emails had
a remarkably similar and repetitive theme, they also ran the gamut of ordinary
conversation, current events,
the
state of the world.
However, that remarkably similar and repetitive theme was enough to make me hit
delete delete on anything he or I sent.
After I'd printed
them for re-reading, of course.

And they began merging to reveal the inner
soul of a unique individual; kind, intelligent, charming, funny, discerning.
And after saying that, this sounds as though I'm blowing my own horn and I'm
really not—but he reminded me a lot of me.
In male form, of
course.
Any thoughts of writing fiction flew out of my head; I sent him
an email of my day during pretty much every lunch hour, along with thumbnail
sketches of my sister, my friends, the folks in the office I didn't consider my
friends, the attorneys—whatever happened to be going on that day.

What I didn't do was admit why I was doing
it. Not to him, of course, though it's kind of hard to lie to yourself about a
fascination rapidly becoming an obsession. And I wasn't about to admit I had an
obsession. Been there, done that, not going back. I'd had obsessive exciting
and it hadn't worked out well. And that, friends and neighbors, is the
understatement of the
century
. It
damn near killed me and left me virtually numb for at least five years, which
is why it was so important that—go ahead, speak the truth and it will set you
free—why it was so important that I marry a good, steady,
boring
, man like Scott who would never make the top of my head explode
when he kissed me, but wouldn't tear my heart out while it was still beating
and throw it away, either. He was
safe
.
I cared about Scott,
well,
I thought I did though now
sometimes I wondered. I appreciated his many virtues. But he'd never hurt me because
I didn't care enough. And that was
exactly
what I wanted. I wasn't going through exciting again.

And so, in my emails, I was happily
engaged, I had no intention of changing that status, I was very happy with my
life. And I was sure he wouldn't like me in person anyway, because I was very
stand-offish and actually not sexy in the slightest, which I euphemistically
phrased as not being very touchy, certainly did not possess the beauty he
proclaimed absolutely screamed from the picture I'd sent him, and really didn't
take to people very well or very often.

He responded in kind, alternating teasing
with sarcasm, never backing down an inch from his contentions that I was sexy
as hell, that with the right man (implication himself) I'd be touchy as hell,
that for somebody who didn't take to people very well or very often, I
certainly seemed to have a large circle from which to draw descriptive
entertainment. However, when broken down and analyzed, he didn't really tell me
anything about himself. Well, he did, but he didn't, though I don't know if
that makes any sense. I resolved to rectify that situation.

You
know so much about me because I talk a lot, but that's what you get when you
start corresponding with a writer. You get some long-ass emails, and talking to
you in my little missives has become the high spot of my day. But I know so
little about you. Let's start telling each other some little known fact or
tidbit about ourselves that not many, if any, people know
.
As in, don't tell me you're a crack shot, I can figure that out by myself. Tell
me you tear up over Disney movies or you're a great cook. I'll go first. I'm a
classical pianist, formal lessons third through twelfth grade and some in
college, though I don't play much anymore and would have to practice for
several hours in private before I'd ever consider playing in front of anybody
now. Which makes me sad at Christmas, like now, when I hear the Hallelujah
Chorus because I used to be able to play that and I know I'll never be able to
again. And while you're at it, I have three questions that you don't have to
answer but I'd really like to know. (1) Did you remember me from that complaint
you served for Mark, really? (2) You pursued relentlessly through the course of
one whole day and then you completely disappeared for two and a half weeks.
Why'd you go away? And why'd you come back? And would you have come back if I
hadn't emailed you about that bug your system had caught? (3) And have you ever
done this with anybody else? You're a natural flirt, you know you are.

I hit the send and wondered what the
response was going to reveal.

Chapter Seven

I didn't expect an answer that day and I
didn't get one. I knew he was out in the field. He'd told me that via an
earlier email and besides, it was a bad weather day which translated into good
hunting weather for any process server/bounty hunter as outdoor workers such as
construction and roofing men stayed home, another secret of the trade he'd
shared. The problem was I had an unsettling feeling that I'd have known where
he was even if he hadn't told me and that was just
crazy
.

I
like long-ass emails. AND receiving yours has become the high spot of my day.
We've both wondered what this connection is that you like to deny, and music
could be a major part of it. I'm a brass player, prefer the trumpet, played for
all the grammar school and high school flag raisings, and actually played in
the brass section for a couple of local symphonies when I was a teenager. And
no, I haven't played in years and no, I'm not about to bleed my lip up again
for anybody, even you. But I wish I could sit beside you on the piano bench and
feel you as you play. As to the other, I'm a sucker for the chick-flicks on
Oxygen and Lifetime and I'll tear up in a heartbeat. Also over Gone with the
Wind, Dr. Zhivago, Love Story (don't laugh). Tears don't make weakness. And I
am, by the way, a crack shot, with several trophies for first place in some
competitions back in the days on the force when we drank till twelve and pissed
till dawn. But they never knew about my musical past. And now it's time and
probably past time to tell you something I hope won't upset you. I think about
you far more than you deserve and certainly haven't earned yet. Do with that as
you will and please keep the emails coming because I do read them all many
times. They make the many lonely miles go by so much better and for that I do
thank you. Please give consideration to granting my only Christmas wish, which
is to sit across from you in a restaurant, or better yet, side by side, and
look into each other's eyes while we talk. Of course, I'd prefer a more private
location than a restaurant but I realize I have to start somewhere and a
restaurant would still beat the hell out of this damn computer screen. And by
the way, that was five questions, not three. And I'm a little hurt that you
don't know how special this is and that you could think I've done this before.
No, never.