Perfect Pending: A Paranormal Women's Fiction Novel (Witches of Gales Haven Book 1) Read online

  Perfect Pending

  Witches of Gales Haven ~ Book One

  Lucía Ashta

  Perfect Pending

  Witches of Gales Haven ~ Book One

  Copyright © 2020 by Lucía Ashta

  www.LuciaAshta.com

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, places, or events is purely coincidental.

  Cover design by Sanja Balan of Sanja’s Covers

  Editing by Ocean’s Edge Editing

  Proofreading by Geesey Editorial Services

  ASIN B084VJLDGL

  Version 2020.03.25

  About Perfect Pending

  Marla’s ancestors saddled her with frizzy red hair, sarcasm on tap, the Gawama last name, and the urge to run from her problems.

  Her bloodline was also supposed to guarantee she’d be a powerful witch.

  She isn’t, not by a long shot.

  Only those with magic are allowed in her hometown. Now that her teenage children are awakening, and sparking enough power to be a fire hazard, she’s headed back.

  Even if she isn’t ready. Even if she’s fresh out of divorce court.

  Home is where her family is. Her nan is head of the council, and her aunts claim multiple orgasms are the source of their limber joints.

  But then Marla and her kids all but blow up the town on day one. And her first boyfriend, the one who broke her heart long before her ex did, seems better than ever.

  He has his eye on her…

  So does everyone else.

  Somehow it’s on her, and the magical creature who won’t get out of her head, to save Gales Haven. Before her former mother-in-law redecorates the town in baby pink … and breaks the centuries-old spell that keeps it safe and hidden.

  For everyone who believes empowerment is for any age.

  Welcome to Gales Haven, where you can flaunt your magic with pride.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Thanks for reading

  Books by Lucía Ashta

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  I guided my trusty decade-old Subaru Forester to the side of the road and slammed it into park, breathing heavily as a wave of anxiety rolled through me. I hadn’t been back home in nine years, not since Grandpa Oscar died.

  I’d always realized my return would become inevitable one day. Even so, I wasn’t ready for it. Not yet. I’d wanted to come back stronger than ever, not fresh out of divorce court.

  But with magic in my blood, there was nowhere else better to go. In truth, there was nowhere else at all to go, and I should have come back years earlier.

  Sensing the curiosity of my children like the pricks of needles across my skin, I stared straight ahead.

  “What are you doing?” Clyde asked from the back seat, where he’d pouted for a full half hour before he realized neither I nor his sister cared about the show he was putting on. He claimed it was his turn to ride shotgun; I was going to throw both of them out a window if they didn’t stop fighting over stupid stuff.

  Of course, that wasn’t really true. My children were the reason I was coming back home now instead of when I was ready. I loved them with a fiery intensity I’d never imagined I’d feel for another human. That didn’t mean I always liked them. There were some decidedly annoying traits that my seventeen- and fifteen-year-olds embraced like the newest fad. Chief among them: bickering until I felt like running away and never looking back.

  But then … I was already running.

  “Mom?” Macy said. “Are you just gonna ignore us?”

  If you’ll let me get away with it…

  Clyde slid forward, jutting his head between the front seats. “Yeah, Mom, what’s going on? You yanked us out of school mid-term with some half-assed, bizarro excuse, barely gave us time to say bye to our friends, drove like a nutter all the way here, and now you’re going to just … stop?”

  Macy looked out the window. “Where are we, anyway?”

  “I told you,” I mumbled distractedly. “This is where I grew up. In Gales Haven.”

  “This is where you grew up?” Clyde snickered. “Out in the middle of nowhere on the side of a crappy road? That explains a lot.”

  I rolled my eyes. I did that often. At the tender age of forty-four, I found less and less reason to hold back. If I thought it, it was likely to slip past my lips. I used unholy amounts of willpower not to unleash a barrage of colorful euphemisms in front of my kids, or to tell them exactly how I felt about some of their more bothersome behaviors.

  “Obviously I didn’t grow up in the middle of a freaking road, Clyde,” I grumbled while congratulating myself on the last-second substitution. “Gales Haven is just beyond the bend.”

  Clyde leaned further forward to peer through the windshield, and Macy all but pressed her face against it, straining to get a glimpse of our new hometown.

  My breath hitched in my chest while I waited.

  If they didn’t see the shimmer, we were screwed. I’d have to figure out how to train Macy to use her magic all on my own, and being the weakest of the witches in my family, that didn’t bode well for any of us. And when Clyde started erupting with flashes of power as his sister already was … well, I had no idea how to handle a teenage boy most of the time. Add magic to the equation and we were doubly screwed. I needed my aunts and Nan to help us out. They were the real magic experts. I had just enough magic to live in Gales Haven.

  With each second that passed, my heart sank a little further. I didn’t have a plan B. This was it. If Macy and Clyde didn’t both see the shimmer in the air that concealed the boundaries of the town, we couldn’t enter.

  The town of Gales Haven was composed entirely of magic users, many with a wild streak and a flair for the dramatic. Not many rules governed the town; there were too many rule-breakers to make it practical. But there were a few fundamental, unbreakable ones. Among them:

  Only people with magic could see the town.

  And only people with magic could enter it.

  I definitely had magic. Always had. I’d learned about my powers along with my ABC’s.

  Macy had magic. Waves of it had begun flashing off of her at the most inopportune times, like in the middle of a sit-down dinner at our favorite Thai restaurant and during Mrs. Cranston’s fifth period calculus. When Mrs. Cranston had called me in for a meeting to discuss my daughter’s inappropriate behavior during class, my excuse that Macy was testing out an experimental rave gizmo that flashed colorful lights wasn’t exactly easily believable. She’d peered down at me over her reading glasses like I was on crack.

  Thankfully, Macy had handled the revelation of her newfoun
d powers surprisingly well. She and Clyde had been too excited by the sudden Harry Potter possibilities to blame me for shielding them from the truth. Until I was sure they had magic of their own, I hadn’t wanted to risk their disappointment. It was all too familiar.

  Macy was just coming into her abilities, which meant that, along with all novice witches, her powers were largely beyond her control. As long as she didn’t have a handle on her magic, it was dangerous—to her and to anyone around her.

  Clyde, however, hadn’t shown any signs of his birthright. That fact alone wasn’t concerning. Much like human puberty, one witch or wizard might mature faster than another. The awakening, as it was called, typically took place anywhere between ages fourteen and twenty-two. Since it was based on maturity, I wasn’t in the least surprised that Clyde hadn’t shown signs of his powers to come. He still tormented his sister by farting on her.

  The problem was, magic was as unpredictable as it was amazing. Sometimes the magic gene skipped a person or two with no explanation.

  Clyde pointed forward, brushing the unruly hair he inherited from me from his forehead. “What’s that?”

  My heart sped up. “What’s what?”

  “Those wavy things in the air.”

  I exhaled loudly, tension I hadn’t even realized I was carrying relaxing from my shoulders. “Damn.”

  “Damn?” he and Macy parroted at the same time.

  “Yeah, damn. You had me freaking out there. Those waves distorting the air are magic. If Clyde can see them, we’re in the clear.”

  “How come I can’t see them?” Macy asked.

  “You must not be looking right,” I said, though I didn’t know how exactly she could be looking wrong. The barrier was ahead of us, in plain sight. Anyone with magic should be able to see it. Even those with weak magic could find the town limits well enough to enter.

  “I must not be looking right,” Macy repeated, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

  My favorite.

  “Right there.” I pointed ahead just as Clyde had. “It’s like heat waves coming off the pavement.”

  “Only they go all the way up to the sky,” Clyde added, and a bit more tension oozed from me.

  Macy shook her head. “I don’t see anything. Seriously.”

  “That’s … not possible,” I said.

  She crossed her arms and turned the full brunt of her sass toward me: “I’m telling you, there’s nothing there. You think I’m lying or something?”

  “Of course not. There’s no reason to lie. Actually, there’s never reason to lie to your mother.” I arched my brow at them in my I’m-dead-serious look.

  Clyde chuckled. Super encouraging.

  “I don’t know what to tell you, Ma,” Macy said. “I don’t see anything but more pot-holey road.”

  Clenching my fingers around the steering wheel, I debated what to do. I couldn’t call my family. There were no cell phones or landlines in the entire town, a fact I’d purposefully omitted in my brief rundown to my kids of what was to become their new home. They would’ve fought me to leave even harder if they’d realized their beloved iPhones were about to be rendered useless.

  The barrier dome that protected Gales Haven from discovery behaved as a gigantic Faraday cage. No electromagnetic pulses got in, and none got out. The concentration of magic in the community interfered with connections to the outside world. Every time landlines had been attempted, the result was the same: crackle.

  My options were twofold: I could drive through and hope like hell the protective barrier didn’t zap my daughter. Or I could turn around and abandon all hope that Macy would get the help she needed, guidance she could only get from my family.

  I’d never heard of someone with magic not seeing the barrier’s signature shimmer. I had no idea what it meant.

  “When your magic erupts like it’s been doing,” I asked Macy, “what does it feel like?”

  “Like I stuck my entire hand in an electric socket and shocked the shi—”

  I gave her my mom glare.

  “Like I get a monster shock every time,” she finished.

  Nodding, I nibbled at my lip. “Okay. Good,” I said, mostly to myself.

  “What’s good?” Macy asked.

  “If your magic’s too weak, the barrier won’t let you through. I assume it also won’t let you see it. But if it’s shocking you like that, you’ve got enough. For sure.”

  I hoped.

  “What about me?” Clyde asked. “Do I have enough?”

  “If you can see the barrier, we’re good.” I nodded to convince myself that everything would be smooth sailing from here on out, and kept right on nodding to myself when I didn’t fully believe it.

  Nothing had been particularly easy in my life.

  Didn’t mean I didn’t kick ass and take names. I did—all day long.

  I’ve got this.

  I eased the car back onto the road and crawled toward the shimmer, throwing constant glances at Macy. With her big brown eyes and long, dark straight hair, she didn’t look much like me.

  Maybe twenty feet from the barrier, I asked, “Still nothing?”

  “Nope,” she answered, popping the p.

  “I can’t believe you can’t see it,” Clyde said. “I can see it tons.”

  “It’s not like that makes you better than me,” Macy retorted right away.

  He hmmphed, and Macy swiveled in her seat.

  She gasped. “I see it! When I turned my head, I saw it out of the corner of my eye.”

  “Good enough for me.” I exhaled loudly and pressed down on the accelerator.

  I might have left Gales Haven under less than auspicious circumstances, but nineteen years had passed since then. Long enough to discover that in this world—magic or not—we make our own luck.

  I had no desire to be some shrinking violet. Or the meek wife Devin had expected and tried his darnedest to mold me into.

  I was returning to town on my own terms—sort of. And not a single woman in my family had ever done anything meekly—or quietly.

  I gunned the engine, and yelling out “Towanda,” I crossed the shimmering barrier.

  Chapter Two

  “You’re weird” were my son’s first words inside Gales Haven.

  “Then you haven’t seen Fried Green Tomatoes with Kathy Bates,” I said, happy with my Towanda entrance. If ever there’d been a time for it, that was it. I’d seized the freaking moment! Kathy Bates would be proud. Woman power!

  “No,” Clyde said. “I’ve seen the movie. You’re still weird.”

  “Whatever,” I said. “You’re not going to be able to mess with my mood today.”

  “You mean for the rest of today? You’ve been plenty moody all morning.”

  “Yeah, well, that was because I didn’t know if I was about to blow up my kids by bringing them through the barrier.”

  Silence met my declaration. I swallowed my grin.

  Wait for it…

  “You what?” Macy shrieked at the same time Clyde said, “You’re kidding, right?”

  I cackled. It was possible I had too much fun at their expense. I had to get my kicks somewhere, especially when they made me put up with all shades of their crap. Fair was fair.

  Macy followed up, her tone only slightly less shrieky: “We wouldn’t have actually blown up, would we?”

  “Of course not.” Probably not, anyway.

  “You’re definitely weird,” Clyde repeated.

  “Yep. I sure am. But I own it, so I’m cool weird.”

  “Nah, just weird.”

  Not even Clyde’s comments would get me down—not now that we’d overcome the biggest hurdle. As much as I hadn’t let myself think about it while I was gone, I’d missed my family—a lot. Sure, they were probably at least half crazy, and they didn’t know the meaning of the word privacy, and they were loud and guaranteed to be obnoxious. But they were family.

  I couldn’t wait to see the whole wild lot of them.

  When we
passed a large welcome sign on the left, I pointed it out. “Watch the numbers. They’ll change right as we … drive … by.”

  Macy and Clyde gasped as the number of residents switched from 3,066 to 3,069 in a flash of glittering rainbow lights like they were on a marquee.

  Welcome to Gales Haven, the spelled wooden sign proclaimed in iridescent bold letters. Where you can flaunt your magic with pride. Established in 1803. 3,069 satisfied, magical residents.

  Beyond the sign, the road into town was a single wide lane spanning three miles before we hit the principal road that bisected Gales Haven, charmingly named Magical Main Street.

  Macy pressed her forehead to her window, smearing the glass, and Clyde gasped a rare “Wow” free of teenage sarcasm.

  I didn’t bother containing my smug grin. “Told you you’d like it here.”

  “You didn’t tell us it was, like, frigging awesome,” Clyde said. “Was that place called Maggie Magpie’s Monster Mania?” he asked, disbelief dripping from the alliteration.

  I smiled widely. “Yep.”

  “The place sells … monsters?”

  I laughed loudly. “No, though that’d be really cool. Maggie Magpie is the local vet.”

  “Then why doesn’t the sign just say so?”

  “Because that would make it way less cool.”

  He chuckled. “You’re right.”

  My mouth was well on its way to dropping open before I snapped it shut. I couldn’t remember the last time he’d uttered those words.

  “There’s a place called Cars, Clues, and Canaries!” Macy exclaimed.

  “Three hundred and sixty-nine Fabulous Feisty Flavors,” Clyde called out. “Is that an ice cream shop?”