"WHAT? A l.u.s.t SPELL?" THAT WAS SO APPALLING, ON SO many levels, she didn't even know where to begin.

"Oh, now that's an awesome idea," Abby said, sitting up straighter and tossing her hair over her shoulder.

Who was this child? Charlotte glared at her baby sister. "No, it's not. I'm not a witch, and even if I was, why would I want to force Will into feeling l.u.s.t for me? That's just...yucky." Humiliating. Desperate. Pathetic.

"Will wants you, Charlotte. Trust me. He just needs a push."

Did they have to keep making this harder for her? Every day she questioned, wondered, wished that Will could feel more for her than friendship, but he didn't, and at the end of every day she counseled herself to be content with what she had. She really didn't need them encouraging her futile dreams.

"He loves you. I can feel it."

"Stop it!" Charlotte was tempted to cover her ears. Bree's words seared into her heart, inciting the dull ache there to a painful throb.

"How long have you felt this way about him?" Bree asked, her voice gentle, hand sliding across the table to touch hers.

Even though she didn't want to do this, even though she wanted to keep all her feelings neat and tidy locked away, even though she was embarra.s.sed to realize how long she'd suffered in unrequited love, she also wanted the comfort her sister was offering. She wanted someone else to know how hard it had been, how unsure it had made her feel about herself, her future, wondering when she would ever give it up and move on.

"Remember when my dog died?"

"Trixie?" Abby's eyes went wide. "That was a long time ago."

"Yeah. Six years ago. And Will came over, and he said all the right things, and he took Trixie and buried her in the yard for me." Charlotte swallowed hard against the lump in her throat. "And I knew right then, that Will Thornton was a good guy, through and through, and that I loved him."

c.r.a.p, she was going to cry. She wanted him so bad she could just about taste him. It was pitiful.

"Then all the more reason to do the l.u.s.t spell. Don't you want to know, once and for all, if there's a chance for you as a couple?"

"You guys really would be a good couple, now that I think about it," Abby said, dipping her finger into her tea and licking it. "You're both like really nice and into hard work and justice and all that."

Charlotte blinked. "Thanks, Abby. I think that was meant to be a compliment." Then she sighed. "But yeah, I guess I do want to know once and for all. I mean, I already know he doesn't feel that way about me, but I think I really need to see it in a totally obvious way. Maybe then I can figure out a way to move on, get over him. Because at this rate, I'm going to be ninety and still l.u.s.ting after him."

"Gross," was Abby's a.s.sessment.

"Seriously gross," Charlotte agreed. For over five years she'd been holding her breath that someday Will would get married and start a family, and she needed to prepare herself for that inevitability.

Since she wasn't a witch, a l.u.s.t spell wasn't going to work, and Will wasn't going to respond to any s.e.xual overtures without a spell. But if, for some strange reason, the zipper thing wasn't a weird, crazy coincidence, and she did actually have some kind of magical talent, and a l.u.s.t spell did work, she wasn't sure she could resist the opportunity to just once see what s.e.x with Will would be like. Think of it as her gift to herself as she entered a lifetime of celibacy. A girl needed something to hold on to. s.e.x with Will would be a memory definitely worth clinging to for the next fifty years.

"So, how exactly do I create a l.u.s.t spell?" She wasn't chanting naked in the woods in the snow. Her twin set stayed on, thank you very much. At least for the spell creation portion of the evening's activities. After the spell went into affect on Will, well, she could only hope.

"It's very simple, actually." Bree leaned back in her chair, eyes narrowed. "I need to collect a few things. What are you doing tonight?"

"I have to work, then I'm going over to Will's to help him put up his Christmas decorations. You know, his decorating is just pitiful. He doesn't even have a full-size tree. It's a tabletop tree." It was probably a bachelor thing, but it made Charlotte nuts. How could he survive without a wreath on his door? A person needed priorities.

"That's perfect. Okay, I'll meet you at the coffee shop at nine. We'll do the spell in the back room, then you can head over to his apartment."

Charlotte felt a niggling of doubt about this whole plan. She was either going to get lucky or make a total a.s.s out of herself. She'd never been much of a risk taker. "And if I do this, you're going to let me do Christmas my way? And you'll cooperate?"

"Absolutely."

She was so not rea.s.sured.

BREE STEPPED INTO CARIBOU CARRYING THREE GIANT SHOPPING bags, her nose running from the cold, as she searched the room for Charlotte. Abby was grumbling behind her, equally burdened.

"You know, it seems to me like we shouldn't even be doing this," Abby said, trying to shake her hair off her face without using her hands, since they were out of commission at the moment, busy holding all their purchases.

"Why not?"

"Because you're not supposed to do magic against someone's free will."

But that was the beauty of Bree's plan. "But Will consented, remember? He said he loved Charlotte, said he would respond if she gave him a clear sign. Magic should be used for the purpose of good, and this is definitely a good thing." She was quite proud of the way the whole thing was coming together. She was going to hook Will and Charlotte up if it killed her, because they truly were the perfect couple. If anyone should be married and popping out babies, it was those two. They were like Ward and June Cleaver for the twenty-first century.

"You're an evil genius," Abby told her.

"Thanks." Bree noticed several people she knew, including one of her coworkers at the library, and Abby's friend Brady Stritmeyer, who was sitting with the Tuckers-Danny; his wife, Amanda; and their daughter, Piper. There was another man with them, a stranger to Bree, and she didn't like the look of him as she waved to the group on pa.s.sing by their table.

The new guy looked pretentious and boring, wearing a pink dress shirt-Lord, what man wore a pink shirt in Cuttersville-and wire-rimmed gla.s.ses. An expensive-looking watch was on his wrist, and he had cuff links in his shirt, of all things. At Caribou on a Sat.u.r.day night. Everything about him looked expensive and insufferable, and there were papers spread out in front of him, like he'd been working. He was the only one at the table who didn't laugh or at least smile when Brady reached out and s.n.a.t.c.hed Abby by the arm and pulled her down onto his lap.

Bree kept going, leaving Abby to chat for a minute. She found Charlotte behind the counter so she deposited her bags in the back room and came back to her sister. "Whenever you've got a minute, we're ready."

"Okay." Charlotte looked nervous as h.e.l.l. "Give me five minutes."

"Sure." Bree didn't have any plans for the night. Since she'd broken up with her last boyfriend six months earlier, she'd been enjoying just doing a whole lot of nothing. The relationship had been emotionally and physically exhausting, constantly trying to keep up with Kevin's mood swings and PMS-like behavior, and she was still recovering. She leaned against the counter, inhaling the coffee bean aroma. The place smelled good, she had to admit. She glanced over at Abby, who was twirling her fingers in Brady's s.h.a.ggy hair. "Hey, who's that guy with Danny and Amanda? The uptight-looking one?"

Charlotte looked over at their table, her hands busy wiping the back counter down. "Oh, that's their financial advisor...or is it he's their lawyer? I don't know, something like that, and he's in town from Chicago."

Figured. "Let me get the other bags from Abby and I'll meet you in the back room."

Her sister didn't really answer, just bit her lip. Bree was going to have to hurry before Charlotte wimped out on her. She was not going to tolerate Charlotte s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up her own personal happiness out of plain old fear.

After a quick h.e.l.lo to everyone at the table, Bree told Abby, "Come on, bring that stuff in the back." She flashed a smile at Piper. "We bought Christmas decorations. Big, blinky ones."

"Cool," was Piper's a.s.sessment. She was a gawky kid, all legs and elbows, her hair an unflattering little bob, but she was a real peach. Bree saw her almost every weekend at the library, perusing for new reading material.

"Here, you take it," Abby said. "I'm going to the movies with Brady."

Annoyed, Bree took the bags Abby was shoving at her. "Is that you asking permission? Because it sounded more like you telling me, which isn't how it works." She and Charlotte were responsible for Abby while her parents were gone, and sometimes her little sister thought she was all grown up and then some.

Abby looked defiant, but she just said, "Can I go? Brady will drop me off."

"Can you?" Bree asked him, not really liking the way his hand was resting on her sister's thigh, but figuring she had no right to say anything.

"Yes, ma'am," Brady said, with more sarcasm than deference.

"Fine. Be home by midnight." She turned to go and accidentally looked straight into the eyes of the financial advisor/lawyer. A shiver raced through her when she realized she could sense his feelings. There was disapproval radiating from him. Toward her.

"Bree, have you met Ian Carrington?" Danny said. "He's our lawyer and a friend of Amanda's. Ian, this is Bree Murphy, the children's librarian over at the Cuttersville branch."

"And tarot card reader," Amanda added with a grin, her hand sliding down to her slightly raised stomach.

Bree had seen Amanda's pregnancy in the cards four months earlier. She gave a wan smile at Ian, who wasn't smiling at all. "Nice to meet you." Not really.

Apparently he felt the same way. He just nodded. "Likewise." But then he raised an eyebrow and glanced at her hands. "Children's librarian, huh?"

If it were any other guy under the age of thirty-five, she'd think he was checking her left hand for a wedding ring. But she suspected he was actually looking at her mult.i.tude of sterling silver rings and her black fingernails. That disapproval floated off him again, like a noxious cloud.

Pretentious jerk. She would have him know that Onyx was the hottest nail color of the season. Witches and nonwitches alike were wearing it.

"Yes. Children's librarian and tarot card reader." Deal with it. "Be home by midnight, Abby, I'm serious. I'll see you all later."

She had a spell to cast.

CHARLOTTE LOOKED AT ALL THE BAGS THAT BREE WAS DIGGING through in bewilderment. "What is all this stuff?"

"It's camouflage mostly. You said Will doesn't really have any decorations. So I bought a b.u.t.t-load of Christmas decorations. It's unreal how much tacky stuff they have on the market. So I bought a bunch of stuff and you can take it over to Will's and decorate his apartment. That way he won't think anything of you hanging up mistletoe."

"You've got to be kidding me." Charlotte had followed the plan until the mistletoe bit, than she had realized the plan was c.r.a.p. "I'm going to look like a desperate dork if I hang mistletoe in Will's apartment."

Flinging herself down onto the microfiber faux suede sofa she had in her office in a soothing plum color, Charlotte bit her lip. "I can't do it, Bree. He's going to know."

"Isn't that sort of the point?" Bree emerged with a sprig of mistletoe from a florist's box.

"That looks real."

"Well, duh. Fake isn't going to work. It's the live mistletoe that holds s.e.xual energy."

"It's a plant. What is s.e.xual about that?" Yet Charlotte found herself pulling back a little when Bree waved it in her face.

Bree laughed. "It's not going to make you spontaneously aroused or anything. You can touch it."

She was already aroused, and had been essentially every day since the very first minute she'd met Will on her twenty-first birthday, when he'd shown up at the Rampant Lion bar with his buddies, and caught her when she'd tripped getting off her stool, the embarra.s.sing result of alcohol consumption and a poor choice of high heels.

"I don't need to touch it. Just tell me what to do. This whole thing is way too out there for me." Way too out there.

"Well, the mistletoe is a.s.sociated with fertility, protection, friendship, good luck, and uninhibited s.e.xual activity."

h.e.l.lo. "Wow. Impressive little green twig. I just thought it was an excuse people used to make out."

"That, too." Bree pulled some ribbon out of another bag and started tying it around one of the branches. "But originally Druids used mistletoe to ward off evil spirits and to increase fertility because it stays green all winter long, even when the oak tree it grows on is dormant. Green is the color of growth and fertility."

Good grief. "I'm not looking to be fertile!" They needed to take things one step at a time.

"It's also the color of love and s.e.x."

That she'd take. Both of them. In large quant.i.ties, please.

"Which is why I bought you a green sweater to wear." Bree finished tying off the red ribbon and pulled a cable-knit sweater out of another bag. "It's plain and boring, just the way you like your clothes."

How thoughtful. Charlotte rolled her eyes. Her clothes were not boring. They were cla.s.sic, made from quality materials and designed to flatter her decidedly average figure. She was of average height, average weight, average backside, slightly above average bra size. She looked best in form-fitting sweaters with crisp cotton blouses underneath and a good old pair of cords or khakis and some boots with a kicky heel. Most of her sweaters were in pastels since she was blond, or occasionally when she was dressing up, she went with red. She never wore the emerald green Bree was shoving at her.

"This is furthering my conviction that I'm going to make an idiot out of myself."

"Why? It's not like I just gave you a push-up bra, a thong, and thigh-high stockings and told you to go for it. It's a cable-knit sweater, loser."

Charlotte yanked it from her sister's hand. "You're not being very nice to me."

Bree stopped pawing through yet another bag and looked at her. "Hey. I just want you to be happy," she said softly.

Shoot. Sister guilt. "I know. But you're freaking me out with all this stuff. And I really, really think Will is going to have a heart attack, run screaming, and never speak to me again if I try to drag him under mistletoe and chant his clothes off of him."

"No chanting in front of him-that would be a bad idea. We're just going to load this mistletoe with a nice little hexen-symbol for l.u.s.t. Then you can just pull it out and hang it up anywhere in his apartment and you'll be good to go. He will rip his clothes off all by himself, no chanting required."

Bree opened a pack of markers. "Now choose your symbols. Do you want s.e.x, love, dominance, serenity, thrusting?"

Thrusting? The image of that both in actuality and how it might appear on paper rose up in Charlotte's mind. She reached up and redid her hair knot, mouth dry. "How many can I pick?"

"As many as you want."

"Then I'll take them all except for the dominance." Her friendship with Will was very balanced, and if they went beyond a platonic relationship, she wanted that aspect to remain the same. Then she added, before she totally lost her nerve, "And give me three of the thrusting ones."

"Dang, girl," was Bree's opinion of that. "You got it."

Charlotte could only sincerely hope that she would in fact be getting it before the night was over.

Four.

WILL DRIED HIMSELF OFF WITH A TOWEL AND DEBATED calling Bree and asking her what the h.e.l.l she had meant earlier when she'd sworn to take care of things between him and Charlotte. He'd been worrying about that promise just about every minute since, and had concluded there was really only one thing he could do.

He needed to tell Charlotte the truth about his feelings before Bree did. He was twenty-nine years old. It would be lame as h.e.l.l if the woman he loved found that little fact out from her sister. Jesus, the only thing worse would be a note folded up and pa.s.sed across the room.

Charlotte deserved better. She deserved him looking her straight in the eye and telling her he loved her.

Which was why he'd taken a shower in antic.i.p.ation of her coming over to put up his Christmas tree. He figured a guy ought to smell good when professing love, and if Bree was at all right-which he had to admit, he was hoping she was-then maybe, just maybe, they'd wind up naked before the night was out.

In fact, he was determined they were going to get naked. If she felt the same way about him, then he wasn't going to dance around the issue anymore. He was going to dust off his dormant seduction skills and show Charlotte where she really belonged, which was with him, in his life, in his bed. Forever.

d.a.m.n it.

He was a cop. He'd taken a bullet in the shoulder in a robbery a few years back. Why had he been such a freaking wimp when it came to Charlotte?

Because he hadn't wanted to lose her altogether. Having half of Charlotte, as a friend, was better than not at all, so he'd settled all those years. But no more. He wanted all of her.