Chili Cauldron Curse. Lynn Cahoon
love having young people around the warehouse. It makes the day go quickly. They are all so chatty and friendly.” Tasha glanced at the ringing phone. “I need to take this. We’ve got a lot of planning to do before the grand opening next week.”
“Go ahead. I was just checking in.” Mia propped the front door open with a rock, then went to the back door and did the same. Hopefully that would clear the smell out before anyone else arrived.
Two hours later, a horn blared in the front of the building. Mia hurried to the front hoping it wasn’t another delivery from the Lodge. Instead of finding a truck, she was shocked to see Isaac standing outside his convertible Mercedes, the horn still blaring.
“Okay Isaac, everyone knows you’re here. You can lay off the horn.” Mia stepped outside and saw Christina climb out of the passenger side of the car, her eyes as red as her hair was dyed. Apparently, it had been a long trip here. “I didn’t realize you were driving Christina here.”
“And how exactly did you expect her to arrive? Mom and Dad weren’t going to trust her with one of their vehicles. Especially not after that disaster in Vegas.” Isaac glared at Mia like his sister’s misbehavior was Mia’s fault. “I did have plans this week.”
“Oh? I didn’t see anything on the schedule.” Mia watched as he squirmed. Isaac seemed to be hiding something. She glanced at her watch. “You still have plenty of time to open the restaurant.”
“I know I do.” He snapped back at her. “I just meant with you out of town, I was going to hit the gym and do some errands.”
She thought she could see his eyes narrowing behind his Oakley sunglasses, a sure sign that he was lying. She pointed to her car parked by the building. “Christina? Put your bags in the back of my car. You’ve got a room at Grans’s with me.”
“Thanks Mia.” The words were a little muffled since she had her head in the trunk digging out a bag.
“I take it you can bring her back to Boise?” Isaac leaned on the car door, not moving closer to give her a hug or kiss or any other PDA that might tell anyone watching that they were freaking living together. She’d always been the one who’d had to make the first move. Today, she was tired of playing games.
“I’ll drop her off at your mother’s sometime on Monday. We’re staying for the grand opening on Saturday, then I’d like to spend some time with Grans before I come home.” Mia crossed her arms, watching her boyfriend climb back into his car before she was even finished talking. “Look, Isaac, I think we need to talk. About us. Are we okay?”
“Works for me. I’ll see you Monday night.” He turned up the music as if she hadn’t said anything at all. Then he started the car and watched for Christina to close the trunk. He didn’t even look at Mia as he backed out of the driveway and took off down the highway toward Boise.
Christina dragged a duffel bag with one hand and had a backpack on the other shoulder. “Man, he’s in a crappy mood. All he did the whole way up here was gripe at me for not going to college. According to him, I’ve broken my parents’ hearts. And I’ve almost killed them just because I wanted to try to live on my own.”
In Vegas. Mia added silently. She’d met Isaac’s parents a few times and their conservative background drove their children a little bit crazy. As a result, they both had rebelled. Isaac’s rebellion was just a little less noticeable than Christina’s. They’d wanted him to be a lawyer, rather than a chef. But since he ran the city’s best restaurant, they’d cut him a little slack lately. If they’d known that Mia was a practicing kitchen witch, they would have insisted he break their relationship off. Of course, Isaac didn’t believe in her powers anyway. He’d laughed when she’d tried to come clean early in their relationship. He thought her dabbling in magic was cool. He also didn’t believe anything she did made any difference. As far as he was concerned, her practice was more like yoga than actual magic. She didn’t know how to tell him she wasn’t dabbling. “Sorry, I know Isaac can be intense.”
Christina paused and studied her. “What’s going on between you two? When I asked how you were, he kind of grunted, then changed the subject back to my bad deeds.”
“Nothing’s going on.” She wasn’t going to talk about her crumbling relationship to his little sister. Mia and Isaac would sit down when she got home next week and have a heart to heart. “Go stash your stuff and we can start getting this place in shape. We’ve got some help coming in a couple hours and I’d like to get you up to speed so you can help direct the volunteers when they get here.”
“Cool. I love being in charge.” Christina hurried over to Mia’s car.
Mia paused a bit to watch the skyline in the direction Isaac had left. What was going on with him? She’d been busy working and remodeling the house they’d bought together. Maybe he just needed some attention. She sighed and turned back to the warehouse. She was always juggling something. She was always busy. The bathroom remodel was just about to begin and she’d been looking forward to a few days of nothing when Grans had called asking for a favor. So she’d run up here.
But that was water under the bridge now. She had less than a week to get this food pantry up to code and a working rotating system set up so Tasha, and hopefully a few more volunteers, could keep the place successful. Good intentions didn’t feed people. Hard work did.
“So, what’s up?” Christina had followed her inside and now stood next to her gazing at the mess. “Holy heck. That’s a lot of boxes.”
“Yes, it is.” Mia led her over to the table where she’d drawn out a map of the warehouse. “This is the plan. We need to get the boxes where they need to be unloaded, check all the food labels and make sure nothing’s expired, and then stack them, oldest first on the shelves.”
“That’s going to take forever. I sure hope you have a lot of people coming in to help.” Christina pointed to the paper products. “I’ll take that section. No buy-by dates.”
“Okay, but once you’re done, you need to move to the next section.” Mia held back the sigh she wanted to release. Christina always looked for the easy way out. She’d hoped she’d matured at least a little living on her own.
“Sure.” The red hair was pulled up into a loose ponytail and she grinned at Mia. “You got it.”
Which was her way of saying catch me if you can? Mia headed over to the still looming stack of boxes that hadn’t been opened and moved to their new sorting place. She’d put up signs for Tasha where the new, incoming contributions should go to keep the stock from being mixed together. And, once she’d set up the system, she’d go over it with Tasha. Then she’d tell Grans the food bank needed at least two additional volunteers to come every week to help. If they stayed with Mia’s plan, the food pantry could be successful, without any future interventions.
At least that was the plan.
When the other volunteers showed up at two, Mia, Christina, and Tasha had just finished lunch. Mia closed the pizza boxes and asked Christina to take them out to the dumpster. Then she went to talk to Kev.
“Thanks for coming.” She looked around for Tasha but she must have disappeared into the office. “By the way, Tasha thinks you’re a gaming group, so let’s keep the magic stuff under wraps, okay?”
“No worries. I’m used to dealing with the non-magical locals. We can hide in plain sight with the best of them. Besides, I’m the one who kind of led her to believe that cover story.” He gave her a quick hug. “Are you coming out to the coven meeting Saturday night?”
“Probably not. You know I don’t like all the group activity stuff.” She glanced over at Christina. “Besides, my boyfriend’s sister is here and I can’t very well bring her along.”
Kev’s gaze darted over to Christina and a wide grin showed off very white teeth. “I don’t know. I think she would look amazing in circle.”
“You’re a perv.”