The Matchbaker (A Romantic Comedy) (25 page)

“The lawyer’s office is just a few blocks down,” he says, and there’s a challenge in his tone.

My jaw drops. “You get off on this, don’t you?” I can’t help the nervous laugh that bubbles up in me.

Joe laughs too. “Well, Sagehaven isn’t exactly the most happening town. A little adventure would be fun.”

“Okay,” I say, drawing out the
aaaaa
. “So now we’ve established a town full of magical folk: not exciting. But breaking and entering: exciting.”

“Exactly.” Joe turns on his heel and heads for the back of the shop, raising his voice as he goes so I can still hear him. “As a matter of fact, I’d be fine if I never saw another magical person in my life.” He emerges again with his wool coat on. “Well, maybe there’s
one
I wouldn’t mind seeing again.”

Heat rushes to my cheeks again, among other places. My naughty bits are already gearing up for a party. “That’s good to hear.”

He brushes past me, opens the door, and clicks off the last of the lights. “After you.”

It’s almost pitch black now, the only light coming from a street lamp further along the sidewalk and a sliver of moon above. Joe’s silhouette is just as attractive as his face in broad daylight, and I want more than anything to press up against him and kiss him. Kisses don’t affect the curse. I
could
do it. But the bigger concern is will I be able to stop at kissing?

I finally decide against it. I know I won’t be able to stop. So I slide past him, holding my breath until I’m on the sidewalk in case I can’t resist his tantalizing scent. That coffee and fresh soap combo drives me wild.

“All right,” he says once he’s locked the door behind us. “Let’s go.”

“So we’re really doing this?” I knew he wanted to, but I was having trouble believing we were just going to do it without having any kind of plan. “Right now?”

“There’s no time like the present, right?”

I have to admit. This was a new side of Joe I’ve not see before. Kind of a bad boy. Like he could have been in the cast of
The Outsiders
, or something. And if I’m being completely honest with myself, I’m more turned on than I’ve ever been in my entire life. I don’t care that we’re about to commit a felony. It’s hot, and it’ll hopefully lead us to the answers we need.

We start down the street, our pace hurried and purposeful, and when we get to the corner of Main and Sussex, Joe grabs my hand.
God, that feels good
. It makes me all warm and fuzzy and desirous at the same time. There’s a protectiveness about the way he holds onto me, too. No one’s ever wanted to protect me like this. Control me, yes. But this is totally different, and I don’t want it to end. We
have
to find that will.

When we arrive at the door of the law office, Joe turns to look at me. My heart is racing. I’m not sure I can do this.

“Don’t freak out, okay?”

I furrow my brow. “Why would I—”

Before I can even finish my sentence, the door to the law office swings open. Joe barely even touched it.

“How did you—?”

“I
may
have had a short run as a juvenile delinquent,” he says, his tone tentative, but a proud smile on his face.

“I’m learning more about you by the minute.”

“Are you ready to run away yet?”

“Please,” I say. “It’ll take way more than that to scare me off.”

“Good.” Joe’s voice is gruff, causing my heart to race even faster, but this time with desire.

The next thing I know, he wraps his arm around my waist, pulls me close to him and then presses his lips to mine. I know I should resist, because I have no idea if I’ll be able to stop. But instead, I melt into him, letting my body mold against his, and open my mouth for him.

Shit.
I push him away. “We can’t,” I say, trying to catch my breath.

He’s breathing hard too as he runs a hand through his hair. “I know.”

There’s a moment of silence as we both try to compose ourselves. At long last, Joe speaks.

“Biddleman’s office is down this way.” He holds up his phone, letting the glow of the backlight illuminate the way.

When we reach the end of the hall, Joe turns the handle on the glass door. It opens and we both stand on the threshold, staring into the darkness.

“You think it’s in here?” I wonder.

“It’s the best place to start.” He shines the phone around the room until it illuminates a file cabinet. “There.”

I push ahead of Joe and tug on the top drawer. “It’s locked.”

“Nothing is ever really locked.” He’s standing behind me now, so close I can feel his warm breath on my hair. “Try again.”

“Okay.” I’m skeptical as I go to tug the drawer again. “Still locked,” I say when it doesn’t budge.

“Come on, Candy,” he says. “You’re better than that.”

I flip around to look at him, my jaw dropping in the process. “You want me to use magic?”

He laughs. “Of course I do. How do you think I opened the door before? You didn’t really think I went to juvie, did you?”

I swat at his shoulder with the back of my hand. “Yes,” I admit. “And I actually thought it was kind of hot,” I add with the implied
nana-nana-boo-boo
in my tone.

“I still know how to break into stuff,” he offers as a kind of consolation prize, and I giggle into the darkness. I feel like a high school cheerleader flirting with the star quarterback. “But so do you.” His tone has turned serious again. “Come on. Give it a try.”

“My magic doesn’t work like that,” I say. “I need my…spoon.”

The word
spoon
hangs in the air for a second before we both crack up. Thank God he finds this whole thing just as absurd as I do.

“I know,” I say, coming down from my mirth. “It sounds so stupid.”

“You’re right, it does. But not for the same reason
you
think it sounds stupid.”

“Oh?” I stare up at him, tempted to kiss him again.

“You don’t need the spoon. You just need to believe in yourself.” He grabs my shoulders and gently turns me around to face the file cabinet again. “Now go on. Try again. Visualize the lock, see it bending to your will. See the drawer sliding open effortlessly at your bidding.”

“Joe—”

“Come on. No time for doubts.”

He’s right. There isn’t time for doubts.

I stare at the file cabinet for a moment and then close my eyes. I quiet my mind, just like I do when I’m baking, and then I do as he instructed. I picture the lock. I hold the image in my mind for a moment. Once I’ve got it so secure in my mind’s eye that I’m almost convinced I’m actually
looking
at it, I move it. I watch it turn slowly sideways, barely registering the scraping sound I’m hearing in the real world. It’s unlocked. At least in my mind it is. And now I’m picturing the drawer sliding open, revealing all those little folders and tabs to us.

Something hits me in the stomach and I open my eyes. The drawer is open in front of me. My jaw drops. “Oh, my God,” I whisper.

“Told ya you could do it.”

I’m too dumbfounded to say anything else, or to move, even. So Joe nudges me out of the way and starts thumbing through the files with one hand, while holding up his phone with the other.

After a few mere seconds, he pulls a folder out of the drawer. “Here we are.”

“You found it already?” I can hardly believe it was that easy.

“We’ll have to hope the will is actually in here. But even if it is, our work won’t be done.”

Right. Because all the document will help us with is getting a code to the safe.

He closes the drawer, moves to the desk and hands me his phone. I hold it close to the contents of the folder so he can read the documents. There are a
lot
of documents in this one folder.

“Your dad’s really thorough with his legalese, isn’t he?”

Joe gives a little chuckle. “You have no—”

He cuts off as he stares at a piece of paper.

“What?” I ask.

After another moment of scanning the document, he holds it up and says, “Bingo.”

Last Will and Testament

“Yup. That looks about right.”

Joe sits down in the chair and scans the pages of the will. About ten pages in, I’m starting to worry. That’s kind of an important part of his legacy. If no one can open the safe, then the secrets of their book of spells dies with him.

“Wait a sec,” I say, a thought occurring to me.

“Yeah?” Joe says without looking up.

“You just said, ‘nothing is ever really locked.’”

“Mmhmm.”

My brilliance is overcoming me at the same time I’m wondering why I didn’t think of this in the first place. “Why aren’t we using magic to open the
safe
? Why waste our time when we have the power to open the safe itself.”

Joe has stopped reading, and he’s looking at me now. I’m holding the phone up to illuminate his face. He’s trying to keep from laughing.

“That would be great,” he says, a chuckle bursting from his throat. “And thank you for thinking of it.”

“Don’t patronize me,” I say, feeling stupid all of a sudden but not quite sure why.

“Of course not! It’s just…my dad is Joseph Vandermark, III. A sixth generation warlock. The single most powerful man in this town, and maybe even the country. There’s no way he left that safe unprotected.”

“Oh,” I say, fully understanding now why I’m feeling stupid. “But what makes you believe that he hasn’t protected it even from those who have the code? Surely he would have put something in place should his lawyer get any ideas.”

Joe drops the papers back to the desk and furrows his brow. Ha! Not as stupid as we all thought, am I?

“Damn it. I hadn’t thought of that.”

Now I feel badly. I’m lowering morale, and we don’t have time for that. Even if this isn’t the way to go about opening the safe, it’s at least a start. And every wrong direction will lead us in the right direction. Won’t it?

“Or, maybe I have no idea what I’m talking about!” I blurt out. “Keep looking.”

Joe turns back to the document and flips to the next page.

“Oh, my God,” he says, his voice barely a whisper.

“What?”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

My heart is racing. “What?” I repeat. “What is it?”

“It’s bull shit, that’s what it is.”

Oh, God. I’ve never heard him raise his voice, and certainly not with such vitriol. It must be bad. “Tell me,” I demand, and then I realize he doesn’t have to tell me anything about his father’s will. So I tack on a tentative, “I mean…if you want to.”

“This is just like him. Miserable old codger. I can’t believe he would do this.”

I’m not going to ask again. I’ll just wait for him to willingly share whatever horrific news this is with me, no matter how desperate I am to know what’s going on.

“I go away for a few years and now I get nothing?”

“Nothing?”

“
Nothing
.” He hands me the will and I shine the phone at it.

I hereby bequeath my estate and all its contents to my nephew, Steven Vandermark.

“
All
its contents?” I repeat, just as flabbergasted as Joe. “Why?”

Joe shakes his head as he stands and walks toward the window. He looks like some kind of hot movie star in the middle of an intense dramatic scene, with his muscular body silhouetted in the pale moonlight. I have the strongest desire to cross the room and wrap my arms around his waist. Then he’d turn to me, see my face illuminated by the moon, and he wouldn’t be able to resist my moist, waiting lips. He’d descend on them and we’d undress one another in the pale blue light. We’d drink our fill of each other’s physiques before he lowered me to the ground and—

“Why did I even bother coming back?”

Crap.
I’m jolted back to the present, a little hot and bothered from my illicit fantasy. Not that I have an answer for Joe. I look down at the will again and flip forward a couple of pages.

“Hold on,” I say, my adrenaline starting to course through my veins at lightning speed. “Not everything.”

I look up in time to see Joe turn from the window. “What?”

“Look at this.” I hold up the page and he crosses the room to take it from me.

“Well, I guess that makes sense,” he says after a few moments. “I’m the only one who can run it, after all. Of course…I’ll have to live on the street.”

My stomach gives a flip that nearly threatens to empty its contents right here on the lawyer’s desk. That wouldn’t bode well for a future in crime for me. But my first thought—my first ridiculously foolish thought—is to suggest we get an apartment together. I mean, it makes sense, if you take out that whole
magical people can’t be together
component. We both like each other. A lot. We’re both nearing thirty and still living with our parents. It’s logical, isn’t it?