Macy Beckett - Make You Mine

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Allie Mauvais noticed her customer’s gaze darting, once again, to the legal disclaimer mounted on the wall above the list of two-for-one bakery specials. Something in the stiff set of the woman’s shoulders told Allie she’d come to the Sweet Spot looking for more than a chocolate-chip muffin.

Most people did.

“That’s state-mandated—just ignore it.” Allie reached over the counter to squeeze the young blonde’s hand. No wedding ring. She probably wanted a love charm. “Unless you’re checking out the scones, in which case, go with the brown sugar pecan. It’s better than sex.”

The woman released a shaky laugh and nodded at the trays of crullers displayed behind glass doors. She looked vaguely familiar, but Allie couldn’t place her. “Smells like heaven in here. I can already feel my waist expanding.”

“Calories don’t count in my shop, baby,” Allie said with a wink. “Voodoo priestess, remember? Isn’t that why you’re here?”

The girl chewed her bottom lip and squeezed her leather clutch hard enough to choke the little Dooney & Bourke duck. “Um . . . kind of. I drove up from Cedar Bayou.”

“Hey, I’m from Cedar Bayou!”

“I know. We went to school together. You were a few years ahead of me, though.” She peeked up through her lashes and added, “Shannon Tucker? You probably don’t remem—”

“Oh,” Allie interrupted as the pieces clicked. “Jimmy’s little sister, right? You ran the school paper.”

“Yeah.” Shannon grinned, losing an inch of height as her posture relaxed. “I can’t believe you recognize me. I never had the guts to talk to you.”

Not surprising. The upside of being a direct descendant of New Orleans’s most infamous voodoo queen was that people didn’t screw with Allie, not even when the Saints lost the Super Bowl. Sure, the whole parish had blamed her, just as they had the time Sheriff Benson broke out in shingles, but they’d done it quietly from their living rooms. Even when she’d escaped to the city, the locals had pegged her for Juliette Mauvais’s great-great-granddaughter. The eyes gave her away—one amber, one gray, just like Memère’s.

But the upside was also the downside.

Allie wanted someone to screw with her once in a while. The men from her superstitious parish weren’t brave enough to risk the “Mauvais curse” and ask her out, not that she found any of them particularly appealing. Well, except for one, but his tendency to cross to the other side of the street when she walked by put a damper on their would-be love affair.

“You’re talking to me now,” Allie said. If she couldn’t find romance herself, at least she could spread the love for others. “What brings you in?”

Shannon cleared her throat and leaned forward, lowering her voice despite the fact that they had the whole shop to themselves. “I’ve heard you can see things.”

Allie nodded. She could see all kinds of things—like facial expressions and body language. The kinds of things anyone could see if they paid attention. She could hear, too—the subtle changes of inflection or tone that often contradicted the spoken word. People didn’t need voodoo heritage to understand one another. They just had to turn off their iPhones and take their heads out of their asses every once in a while. Luckily, they had Allie to do it for them. Maybe she didn’t have magical powers, but she gave her clients the prodding they needed to find happiness.

“My friends say you can read the bones,” Shannon whispered, then immediately straightened and clarified, “not that I believe in all that.”

A smile tipped the corners of Allie’s mouth. Of course Shannon believed in all that. Everyone in Cedar Bayou did, whether they admitted it or not. They claimed such nonsense was beneath them, but they still came, still defaced Memère’s tomb with markings and oddball trinkets in exchange for favors from her spirit. Voodoo was rooted deeper than the tupelo gum trees in these swamps. It was tangled up with good Catholic upbringing until no one could separate one from the other. Even Allie attended Mass each Sunday morning, right before returning home to assemble gris-gris bags for her customers’ protection and luck.

Around here, everyone believed, even if they didn’t.

That said, Allie had more faith in the power of the human psyche than in Memère’s curses or Father Durand’s holy water. The mind was a powerful thing, and she knew how to direct it. She pulled her mat from beneath the counter and spread it on the Formica surface, then asked, “What do you want me to look for?”

A light flush stained Shannon’s cheeks. “I want to know if you see anyone . . . you know”—swallowing hard—“special . . . in my future.”

“Ah.” A love charm, just as Allie had predicted. “I’ll do my best, but you need to understand something first.”

“What’s that?”

“The spirits only reward the faithful.” She traced one pink-polished index finger around the circle inked on to her mat. “You’ve got to trust them. Can you do that?”

Shannon nodded.

“Because if you can’t, we’re wasting our time.”

“I’ll believe.”

“Okay.” Reaching below the cash register, Allie pulled out a small Tupperware bowl full of bleached chicken bones from the Popeyes three-piece meal she’d scarfed down last week. She had no clue how to perform this ritual—few folks did these days—but nobody needed to know that. She set down the container and reached for Shannon’s hands. “First, we’ll say a prayer.”

Shannon quirked a brow. “To God?”

“Of course. Who else?”

“Oh, okay.”

“Don’t believe what Hollywood tells you. Voodoo’s not evil.”

“Sorry. I didn’t realize . . .”

Allie was used to it by now. Dark magic, the kind Memère had supposedly used in her curses, was considered by believers to be hazardous to the soul, though the general public didn’t know that. Most voodoo doctors and queens used their gifts to benefit others. Though it was psychology, not voodoo, at the heart of what Allie did, she considered herself a healer all the same.

The two linked fingers, bowed their heads, and asked for guidance in finding Shannon’s life partner. After “amen,” Allie scattered the small bones within the circle. While she hunched over the mat, pretending to study the significance in the patterns, she searched her memory of the parish for anything useful that might lead to a match. She’d spent her childhood on the outside looking in, but she’d always paid attention.

Someone’d had a mad crush on Shannon. . . . Who was it? Allie closed her eyes and considered a moment, trying to summon his image. Finally, the answer came. John Paul Romain, the simple-but-cute alligator farmer who lived on the bayou with his grandpère. He’d pined after Shannon like nobody’s business—everyone knew he was sweet on her. More importantly, JP was good people, and still single the last time Allie went home to visit. Her instincts told her the pair could make a great fit, but that Shannon needed to work for it before she’d appreciate an unsophisticated good ol’ boy like JP.

“See this bone, here?” Allie said, pointing to what remained of her Cajun-fried drumstick. “It’s the largest and most important, but it’s near the bottom of the circle, like it’s been discarded. This tells me you’ve already found your match, but you turned him away.” She glanced at Shannon and asked, “Have you snubbed anyone who genuinely cared for you?”

Slowly, Shannon’s eyes widened. “Well . . . yes, but that was—”

“Ooooh.” Allie sucked a sharp breath through her teeth. “That’s bad. The spirits of our ancestors don’t like it when we ignore their help.”

“So, he was really the one?”

“What does your heart tell you?” Allie asked. “How does it feel to know you can’t have him anymore?” If that didn’t hook her, nothing would. No one could resist the allure of the forbidden.

“What do you mean, I can’t have him?” Shannon replied in a sharp pitch.

Bingo.

Allie nodded at the bones. “It’s all spelled out right here. He’s off the market, at least where you’re concerned.”

“But . . . but . . . JP said he’d wait—”

“Do you love him?”

“I don’t know.” Shannon tossed her clutch onto the counter. “I wasn’t sure before, but now I think maybe I do.” Despite Shannon’s doubts, the desperation in her eyes when she said, “Is there anything I can do to get him back?” told Allie the woman had it bad.

Allie studied the bones. “Maybe. Won’t be easy, though. Even if he’s responsive to you, the spirits might interfere. You’ll have to do penance.” She shook her head. “No guarantees.”

“Just tell me what to do, and I’ll do it.”

Biting back a smile, Allie grabbed an order pad from her apron and ripped free the top sheet. She bent down and wrote a list of chores to perform in atonement. When she added the final task—Leave an offering of pralines at Juliette Mauvais’s tomb—she made sure to warn, “But don’t scratch the triple-x marking into the wall. Memère’s spirit doesn’t like it.”

Shannon nodded and took the slip of paper, then opened her clutch. “Thanks, Miss Mauvais. How much do I owe you?”