What A Witch Finds: Magic and Mayhem Universe: What A Witch, #4

Copyright © 2020 by Monette Michaels.

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 book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is coincidental.

This book contains content that may not be suitable for young readers 17 and under.

The Author of this Book has been granted permission by Robyn Peterman to use the copyrighted characters and/or worlds created by Robyn Peterman in this book. All copyright protection to the original characters and/or worlds of the Magic and Mayhem series is retained by Robyn Peterman.

Foreword

Blast Off with us into the Magic and Mayhem Universe!

I’m Robyn Peterman, the creator of the Magic and Mayhem Series and I’d like to invite you to my Magic and Mayhem Universe.

What is the Magic and Mayhem Universe, you may ask?

Well, let me explain…

It’s basically authorized fan fiction written by some amazing authors that I stalked and blackmailed! KIDDING! I was lucky and blessed to have some brilliant authors say yes! They have written brand new stories using my world and some of my characters. And let me tell you…the results are hilarious!

So here it is! Blast off with us into the hilarious Magic and Mayhem Universe. Side splitting books by fantabulous authors! Check out each and every one. You will laugh your way to a magical HEA!

For all the stories, go to https://magicandmayhemuniverse.com/ Grab your copy today!

And if you would like to read the book that started all the madness, Switching Hour is FREE!

https://robynpeterman.com/switching-hour/

Acknowledgements

No book makes it into the world without a lot of help. This book was no different.

I want to thank my critique partner, Cherise Sinclair, and my beta-reader, Kay Layton Sisk, for giving me story-line and basic editing feedback.

Thanks to my editor, Marci Clark at Nerdy Kats, for doing two complete edits on very little notice.

Once again, April Martinez turned out the perfect cover for Paul and Clio's story.

And finally, thanks to Robyn Peterman who continues to let me play in her sandbox along with all the other cool kids in the Magic and Mayhem Universe.

Dedication

To my husband and son who put up with my working on the book statements so many times, usually around dinnertime. I love you both.

Chapter 1

December 3rd, St. Thomas, Virgin Islands

Cliodhna Fitzgerald's duties for the evening were finally done. Her cousin Sheila was officially wed to Frederik Forsythe, III, and the wedding reception was well underway.

Clio kicked off her stiletto sandals. Ahh, finally blessed relief. Her shoes were gorgeous works of art, but her toes and arches had been screaming for the last couple of hours. She wiggled pale peach tipped toes under the cover of the small, draped table she'd bribed the resort staff to set up for her in a sheltered corner of the Grand Ballroom. Here, she could relax and enjoy the sea breeze coming through the open French doors and still keep an eye on things.

A glass of the violently pink-colored champagne punch in hand, Clio silently toasted herself for a job well done and then drained the contents. Blessed Goddess, I needed that.

And she really…really had.

From the time Clio had arrived at the lush resort on St. Thomas, she'd not had one single second to herself. Not only was she part of the wedding party as Sheila's maid of honor, but Clio had also spent most of the last year guiding her magically gifted, but easily put-upon cousin through all the stages of wedding planning.

If she hadn't been there to help her cousin, Clio's Aunt Barrie and Sheila's mother-in-law-to-be would've taken control. The result would've been a designed-to-the-nines wedding and a stuffy reception, which was not what her pretty little cousin had wanted.

Clio could still hear the pleading in Sheila's voice: You know what Mother's like. She'll listen, smile, nod her head, and totally ignore me as she's done from the time I learned to talk. I love my mother, but I don't like her very much some days. I want my wedding to be all about me and Freddie. Please, won't you help me?

And so Clio had said yes.

A bone-headed move she'd never make again for anyone, no matter how much she loved them. The past year had been a string of butting heads with Aunt Barrie and Freddie's mother while talking Sheila out of some of her wilder ideas for her special day.

Somehow, they'd all survived and were still on speaking terms. Her sweet cousin was wed to the man she loved—Goddess, help her, for only Sheila could find something to love in Freddie.

Casting narrowed eyes over the reception now in full swing, Clio mentally went over the post-wedding/reception duties checklist again, just to be sure she was done done.

Pictures taken. Check.

Bouquet and garter tossed. Check, check.

Assisted bride in changing from the wedding gown and into a party-hearty dress. Check.

Buffet dinner after which toasts were given. Check.

The DJ's mix of 80s music had the crowd on its feet, dancing. And finally, her last duty, dancing with the handsy best man, the groom's cousin Montague Forsythe, IV—a.k.a. Monty the Masher. Check.

She snorted and shook her head. Montague had hated it when she'd shortened his name within three seconds of meeting him. The whole Forsythe family was pretentious, and their numbers were legion. Two hundred Forsythe witches, warlocks, and a few mortals who'd married into the family had arrived on the island over the last week.

Clio had never really warmed up to Sheila's Freddie, but from her observations over the last year, he seemed deeply in love and treated Sheila's flights of fancy with true affection. So, Clio cut him some slack. After all, she didn't have to live with him.

But his family was another matter.

The past week had brought her up close and personal with far too many Forsythes and their shirt-tail relatives. That closeness did not equate to fondness. She'd rather swim in a cauldron of deadly poisonous snakes than associate with Freddie's family. Most of them made her skin crawl and raised her hackles.

If she'd known a year ago what Freddie's family had really been like, she'd have staged an intervention and tried to convince sweet Sheila that Freddie's family only wanted to use Sheila's magical ability to better their fortunes and her genetics to strengthen their magical lineage.

But Clio hadn't known. And with all her duties this past week, she hadn't had the time to speak to her father about her gut feelings and observations. She made a mental note to talk to him once they were back home in Minnesota and get his take on the whole Forsythe family. Just because the marriage was a done deal didn't mean the family couldn't keep a close eye on things.

Clio scanned the dance floor and found the happy bride in her new husband's arms. Sheila looked radiant. At least her cousin was happy with how things turned out.

Looking around at the decked-out ballroom, Clio winced. There'd been no way to get Sheila to give up her favorite color pink. So, the Grand Ballroom was a blaze of pink and white and festooned with an explosion of glitter and feathers—everywhere. If there were a place to put glitter, it was glittered. The feathers dyed pink, all shades of pink, were scattered about in large urns to smaller vases, and trimmed the edges of every tablecloth.

Well, things could've been worse, she muttered. I did talk her out of the pink and chartreuse color scheme—and absolutely nixed the love birds in diamond encrusted cages as table centerpieces.

Sheila had uncharacteristically dug her heels in about the birds until Clio'd explained it would be cruel to cage them. Her cousin was always the one who'd brought home injured and sick animals and plants and healed them. Sheila's magic was healing and nurturing, the same powers Clio's mother had. Between the two, the gardens and fields of the Fitzgerald properties and farms were lush and abundant.

Here, have another pink drink. From behind her, a delicate hand tipped with bright red fingernails that could've been classified as lethal weapons in most civilized countries placed a cocktail on the table. You did good, kiddo. Yes, it's a bit over-the-top…

Clio turned to face her mother Molly's lifelong friend Carol, now known as the Baba Yaga—the most powerful witch in the world. To Clio, she would always be her godmother, Aunt Carol.

…though I do like over-the-top myself. Her godmother waved a hand over her outfit, a skin-tight gold lamé dress and diamond jewelry a la Madonna channeling Marilyn Monroe. But this pink-and-white sparkle fest is not your style at all. However, Sheila and her Freddie seem to be pleased, which proves you used your magical skill to make someone you love happy. Of course, not everyone is happy, and I'm loving the fact that the groom's family is appalled.

The magical skill her godmother referred to was a rare form of healer witch. Clio was a Finder. She could locate anything—from lost children to rare antiquities to every pink-and-white decoration in the world and a boatload of feathers—without harming a single feathered creature. As long as Clio had some sort of connection to what was being sought, such as an image or a detailed description of the object or something belonging to the lost person, she could cast a spell and find it.

It had been Aunt Carol who'd sat in the dirt at the edge of a sparkling lake in northern Minnesota, and had patiently taught a grubby ten-year-old Clio how to use and enhance her magical ability by tapping into her affinity to the element water. The process was akin to scrying.

Aunt Carol had not only been her mentor in magic but also in life. Because Clio's mother couldn't say the word sex without blushing, let alone discuss menstruation, Aunt Carol had been the one who explained the facts of life to Clio after she'd had her first menstrual period and thought she was dying. It had also been Aunt Carol who'd explained—in pain-staking detail complete with diagrams and anatomically correct dolls—how a woman's body worked and how sexual relations occurred.

While Clio loved her mother to pieces, she'd never understood