The Deadly Diadem: A Paranormal Artifacts Cozy Mystery (Paranormal Artifacts Cozy Mysteries Book 2) by Tegan Maher (paper ebook reader txt) 📗

My stomach grumbled in response. We’d worked hard and I’d skipped breakfast. If I’d learned one thing growing up in Florida, it was that you didn’t eat a big breakfast before you go moving furniture in ninety-degree weather.

We rode for a few minutes in silence, just enjoying the cold air blowing in our faces. My phone rang, and when my ex’s face flashed across my screen, I let it go to voicemail.

“You can’t avoid him forever,” Eli said when he saw the caller ID. Guilt washed over me.

He was right. I’d been dodging James for the last two weeks. We’d ended things five years before when he’d discovered in the worst way possible that I was a witch. Well, not the worst way. I hadn’t been sacrificing goats or biting off chicken heads or anything, but he caught me red-handed throwing rocks with my mind. Playing magical skeet with Eli, to be exact, and he hadn’t handled it well.

Then I’d run into him a couple weeks ago while I was trying to find a haunted—or rather possessed—pendant that had escaped from our care along with many other cursed artifacts. Since he was the local sheriff, I’d had to draw him into the case in order to get information and cover our tracks. It hadn’t been the best reintroduction, but I suppose it had been fitting.

After the case was solved and the spirit exorcised, we had coffee, and he admitted he still loved me. As if that hadn’t been uncomfortable enough, he then asked me if I still loved him back. Thankfully, I’d been saved when, conveniently, a crow had spilled my coffee, and now I was avoiding him. I didn’t know the answer to his question, and if I were honest with myself, I wasn’t sure I wanted to examine it.

I sighed as the phone quit ringing and tucked a strand of pink hair that had escaped my ponytail behind my ear. “I know, but it’s a no-win situation.”

“How do you figure?” he asked, his gaze curious rather than confrontational. He knew how hard the breakup had been for me, and though he often pushed me to do things I found uncomfortable, he’d never push me back toward a broken heart.

“Because of all the back story. You know I have a strict no-backsie policy, and that was a tough one.”

“Yeah, but maybe it wouldn’t have been so tough if you’d been honest with him,” he said, his tone gentle. “Maybe it wouldn’t have happened at all. Are you sure you don’t want to give that a rethink?”

“I have been giving it a rethink,” I said, huffing. “That’s all I’ve done for the last two weeks.” Well, almost. I’d also been thinking about a tall, dark, handsome—and all the other cliches for hot guys—man who was a true enigma. Luther Von Drake.

Eli narrowed his eyes at me. “You’re thinking about Mr. Hot and Creepy.”

“I am not,” I said, but the pitch of my voice was too high to fool him. My cheeks were also hot, which meant I was blushing worse than a virgin on her wedding night.

“You are, too, but I can’t blame you,” he said, kicking down the AC that had turned chilly because of our wet clothes. “The guy’s a total mystery and obviously dangerous, which makes him completely irresistible.”

I flipped on the blinker and turned into the parking lot of the Cozy Clam, our favorite wharf restaurant. “I totally resisted him!”

He flapped a hand at me and rolled his eyes. “Sure you did, pumpkin. Lie to yourself if you want, but I know you inside out; you just lacked opportunity. You’d totally jump his bones.”

“Are you kidding me right now?” I asked, trying to give him my best are you nuts look. “We don’t even know what kind of bones he really has. Old man? Young-ish guy? Something else? We don’t even know what he is, let alone who.”

“That doesn’t stop attraction, love,” he said with a devilish grin. “As a matter of fact, I’d argue it adds to it, at least in this case.”

“Whatever,” I grumbled as I climbed out of the truck, mostly because he was right.

“Yeah, whatever,” he said, still smiling. He bumped me with his shoulder as we walked across the lot. “That still doesn’t explain why you’re avoiding James. You’re gonna have to talk to him eventually, you know. With this whole mess, we’re gonna need his help. Sooner rather than later, probably.”

He was referring to a mess we were neck-deep in. A couple weeks back, we’d found a trunk on a dive. At first, we thought we’d hit the jackpot because, though it was full of random items, at least a few of them had appeared valuable. But then there’d been a mix-up. Before we’d had a chance to do a magical safety check on those pieces, my sister Willow had accidentally sent them to an auction. Now we had dozens of cursed objects on the loose with no idea when or where they’d turn up or even what some of them could do.

And he was right. We were going to need James, if for no other reason than that he could run interference for us so we could keep the magical world a secret.

“Fine. I’ll call him,” I said as I pulled the door open. It was better to just get it out of the way so we could move forward. My problem was that I wasn’t sure where I wanted “forward” to go, and I didn’t want to lead him on until I did.

Chapter 2

The blended scent of fries, garlic, and seafood wafted over me, and my mouth watered. I squinted as my eyes adjusted to the dim interior of the weather-worn restaurant. Maris, the owner, bustled toward us, smoothing a few flyaway gray hairs back into her bun.

“Look at you two! You look worn clear out. Take a seat and let me get you something to drink.” Her faded blue eyes sparkled as she