Playing with Fire: A Magical Romantic Comedy (with a body count)(12)

Mary and Chief Quinn. Together. That the thought had crossed my mind at all was proof the universe hated me. Why had I agreed to help him in the first place? If I hadn’t taken his stupid camera and gone hunting for his wayward wife, I could go back to my wishful thinking and fantasizing without reality getting in the way.

Chief Quinn sighed. “I heard. Your boss was rather upset over it, and then she found out someone had tried to kill you on top of it. She didn’t take that well at all. I questioned her rather thoroughly along with the rest of the store’s staff.”

“Did you enjoy taking her for a ride, Chief Quinn?” Shit. Why did my mouth always have to go blurting the bitter things I didn’t want anyone to ever hear me say?

“Should I take that as an invitation to explain the situation?”

The anger of having dealt with an eighteen hour hell shift flared back to life. “I really don’t give a shit what two consenting adults do in your car. You know what I do care about? Not being left alone to run the shop for eighteen hours. So what if you took her for a ride in your car? I don’t care who she dates. At least she could’ve called someone in to take her place. What happened instead? I soloed my job from opening to closing. To add insult to injury, your former brother-in-law bombed me with gorgon dust probably hoping to get rid of you, since someone had probably told his wife about the certified barista you called in for consulting work. I was just the bonus. If he took me out, he had a damned good chance of being able to eliminate you from the picture.”

Silence.

Crap, crap, crap. I had said too much. My face flushed, and I scrambled to find some sane justification for unloading all my speculations, one that didn’t involve magic.

“I see.” His lifeless tone partnered with his completely neutral expression told me everything I needed to know. My barbs had struck true, and he wasn’t happy about it at all. “Is there anything else you want to tell me, Miss Gardener?”

How could I possibly be so mad at someone yet still be so attracted to him? At the rate I was going, I wouldn’t know which end was up. Since ‘I’m not wearing anything under this gown’ qualified me for early admission into an asylum and counted as sexual harassment, and ‘spank me, I’ve been bad’ wouldn’t go over so well, either, I mumbled, “Sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

“I’d be pissed, too, if someone had tried to kill me in his effort to get revenge on someone else. I’m a big boy. I can handle anything you throw at me. That’s all I needed to know. Thank you for your time, Miss Gardener. Enjoy rehab.”

How did he make sliding off an examination table look good? It really wasn’t fair. Considering I’d already ruined any chances of having a civil conversation with the man, I went all in and threw caution to the wind. “I’m not wearing anything under this gown.”

He walked towards the door without reacting to my words. Fine, if he wanted to play hardball, I’d play hardball. “Hey, Sammy. If you want someone to teach you how the reverse cowgirl should really be done, give me a call. I know some girls.”

There. Not only did I pour gasoline on the situation, I lit a match and tossed it on. It wasn’t like I ever had a chance with a man like him anyway. It was better for me if he avoided me indefinitely.

Chief Quinn slammed the door so hard I felt it from across the room. For some reason, my victory only made me feel even worse. Damn it.

I deserved every bit of hatred the man threw my way.





Chapter Four





It took two weeks for me to recover enough to escape the hospital, thanks to one baby virus who decided to grow up and become pneumonia. I was stuck with the cough for another week or two, but I could deal with the prescribed bedrest, lots of fluids, medication, and taking it easy.

Those might become my famous last words, as I hadn’t expected the NYPD and the CDC to join forces and napalm my apartment. From the outside, there was no evidence anyone had waged war on the interior of my home, but sure enough, everything inside had been reduced to piles of gray ash. While I stood in the doorway trying not to cry, my landlord gave me my formal eviction notice, which claimed I had willfully brought dangerous substances into the building.

Yippee.

Too tired to fight the false accusation, I accepted it with a nod, folded the slip, and stuffed it into my pocket. At least it would provide evidence I had lived at the building. That might help me get a replacement identification card.

In retrospect, I deserved it. Taking out my bad day and time in a glass coffin on Chief Quinn lowered me to the same basic level as pond scum. I owed him an apology. Hell, I owed him a lot more than an apology. In a stunt worthy of the worst type of asshole, I had made everything worse.

I realized I hadn’t had a single visitor or phone call the entire time I’d been in the hospital, and it was no wonder why I didn’t have any friends. I’d driven Mary off, burned bridges with my other co-workers by tattling on them, and there was no one else in my life. In a way, it simplified things for me. Since no one cared what happened to me, I didn’t have to go to the hassle of sending thank you cards.

I really needed to stop lying to myself. I’d seen the pity in the nurses’ eyes when I pretended I didn’t care no one came to see me. They had caught me checking the door whenever someone walked by. Whatever goodwill I had earned trying to keep the gorgon dust contained in my apartment I had promptly lost by being a complete bitch.