The Lethal Luau Read online

  © 2020 Tegan Maher

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, in any form, by any means electronic or mechanical, including but not limited to photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system currently in use or yet to be devised.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual people, places, or institutions is entirely coincidental.

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  Table of Contents

  Copyright Page

  Copyright Page

  Author’s Note

  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

  Thank You!

  Wickedly Ever After

  Connect with Me

  Other Books by Tegan Maher

  About Tegan

  Author’s Note

  Thank you for joining me for my second adventure on the Enchanted Coast! This book was a ton of fun to write, and I’ll be following up with Book 4, High Tide Homicide, soon. These books are a little lighter and shorter than my other series because my goal was to create a quick, light read great for an afternoon at home, or to bring some magic to your own Enchanted Coast vacation.

  Enjoy!

  Chapter 1

  “JUST PUT THE REST OF it over there,” I said, settling the last picnic table into place a safe distance from where the bonfire would be. How people without magic organized parties in ninety-degree heat was beyond me. Just levitating five tables from the patio to the beach had exhausted me; if we’d have had to carry them, I’m pretty sure I’d have keeled over dead.

  Angus, the gnome who’d drawn the short straw on work assignments this morning, guided a pile of airborne firewood to a large pile already stacked by the barbecue pit, then collapsed onto the nearest bench and huffed out a breath.

  “Wow,” he said, pulling a bandana from his pocket and swabbing his swarthy forehead with it. “I hope everybody appreciates what went into this shindig.” The faint Scottish brogue was still there even though he hadn’t lived in Scotland in at least a couple hundred years. It was funny because when he drank, it got so thick that he sounded like he was fresh off the moors. When he threw Southern slang into the mix, it was hilarious.

  I gave him a tired smile and sat down beside him. “Even if they don’t, I do. I’m grateful for your help. There’s no way I could have done all this by myself. When I threw out the idea to have a luau, I was obviously having a brain-dead moment. We’ve had a ton of RSVPs, so I think it’ll be worth it, though. It’s a great way to show appreciation for our regulars.”

  He gave me a sideways glance as he took a huge pull from his water bottle and returned my smile. “Sure you could have pulled it off, Supergirl. But I was happy to help. Sometimes it’s nice to get out of the kitchen.”

  Angus usually worked in the kitchen as a sous chef for the Enchanted Coast, a paranormal resort on the Gulf of Mexico, which is both where I work and my home. I’m a bartender and waitress, and interim manager, at the beach tiki bar, which suits me. As a water witch, being near the ocean all day every day soothes my soul. Still, sometimes the work is brutal and thankless, which is why I always go out of my way to make sure people know I appreciate them.

  I smiled at the nickname. Ever since I’d sort of fallen into the management position when my boss, a disgraced angel, had been murdered, I’d had to wear several hats around the resort. In addition to managing, bartending, and waitressing at the tiki bar, I was also the backup administrative director on the rare occasion that Blake, the regular boss man, had to go off-resort for longer than a few hours. Realistically, it wasn’t a big deal because even when he did leave, nothing serious ever came up. Still, Bob, my Bigfoot bartender and best friend, had jokingly called me Supergirl on the one occasion when all of my jobs had required me at once, and it had stuck.

  That had been a hella day. While I was covering a bartending shift, a group of twenty Valkyries had flown in for a tricentennial birthday party, a health inspector had shown up for a pop inspection of the bar, and the slot machines had gone down at the casino. I’d called the repair guy, set the Valkyries up with several pitchers of hibiscus margaritas and a variety of appetizers to occupy them, then taken the inspector on her tour. Not a big deal, at least to me, but apparently I’d been the only one to think so.

  “Seriously, lass,” Angus said, pulling an ice-cold bottle of water out of his knapsack and handing it to me. “Why are you still doing it all? Everybody knows you don’t want the management position, and that’s a ton of extra work Blake’s expecting you to do. It’s been nigh six months since Cass was murdered.”

  I lifted a shoulder as I pulled the clip out of my tangle of red curls and swept it back up, capturing the damp ringlets that had escaped. “I’m not sure, to be honest. Blake’s been preoccupied with the renovations, and I just haven’t had the heart to put more on his plate. He’s counting on me.”

  Consternation tinged his brown eyes. “Some might say he’s takin’ advantage of your kindness.”

  I snapped my gaze to him, both irritated and defensive. “And who might say that?”

  When he looked away, a surge of regret washed over me and I sighed. “I know, I know. To be honest, I feel the same way sometimes. It truly isn’t that bad, though. Just that one time and I got us through that just fine.”

  “Aye,” he said, “but you shouldn’t have had to. You literally did the jobs of three people that day. And you regularly do the work of two.” He studied the horizon as the waves lapped onto the shore just a few yards from us. “I know it’s not my business, but you’re a good kid. Just don’t let him steamroll you, even if he's doing it unintentionally.”

  Colin, my wolf-shifter boyfriend, had said the same thing more than once. Blake and I were close. Not as close as we’d once been, but we’d salvaged our friendship after we’d ended our engagement. He was a good guy, so I knew he wasn’t intentionally overloading me. It was more like he knew the tiki and the resort were in competent hands, so it worked for him. It was also my own fault. Every time he’d tried to apologize for not filling the position yet, I’d taken a good look at the stress lines around his eyes and waved him off.

  I scrubbed a hand over my face and laid the cold water bottle against my cheek. It felt amazing, even though it was already starting to get warm in the heat. “Once the renovations are over, I’ll push it. ‘Til then, I’ll manage. And it’s not like he’s not compensating me.”

  He shrugged. “It’s your call, lass. I know what you mean, though. I like Blake, and this whole thing’s been a nightmare for him, and that’s a fact.” He glanced sideways at me. “Did you hear they’re putting in a pool designed specifically for larger folks up at the new addition?”

  “Larger?” I asked, brow raised. “You mean like for giants?”

  “Well,” he said, “I guess it’d work for them, sorta, but no. I mean for people like centaurs and unicorns. It’s gonna be the size of like five Olympic pools so they have enough room
to get in and swim even if they bring groups.”

  “I had not heard that,” I said. I hadn’t paid much attention to any of the details, though I was pretty sure I’d have remembered that.

  “Yeah, it’s gonna have a diving platform and everything. Rumor has it, it’s gonna be thirty feet deep at the one end.” He scratched his cheek, his fingers scraping across his salt-and-pepper whiskers. “Course, I reckon if you have a thousand-pound creature crashing in from eight or ten feet above, it’d almost have to be. I suppose you didn’t hear about the new fairy pools, either.”

  “What?” I said, drawing my brows down in confusion. I may have zoned out while Blake and Colin were talking about the new additions, but I couldn’t believe I would have missed that. “Where are they putting fairy pools? And why?”

  “Over yon,” he said, motioning toward the magical forest that was part of the resort. It had been built exclusively for forest folks who liked to commune with nature. A beach coastline didn’t tend to be heavily forested, so the founders had hired a fairy consultant to help them design then build one. It was quite impressive actually, though now that I thought about it, there weren’t any bodies of water in it.

  “Why are they doing that? We have water everywhere here.”

  He shrugged and his eyes took on a faraway look. “Not everybody likes to swim in a warm ocean or a heated swimming pool. Plus, the waterfalls are both exciting and restful. I heard the water’s never going to get above seventy.”

  “Seventy?” I asked, thinking how nice something that cold sounded right now. “Are you serious?”

  “Yup. My buddy Smitty’s helpin’ em because he spent some time on the Isle of Skye. He says it’s somethin’ to behold. The water’s crystal clear but looks almost emerald, and the waterfalls—there are gonna be three—look so authentic, you’d think you were in Scotland.”

  I laughed, then pushed up from the bench. “I wouldn’t be hard to convince. I’ve never been anywhere north of Virginia or west of the Mississippi. Those fairy pools are on my bucket list, though. For that matter, so is a big percentage of Scotland. Are they finished with them?”

  “Not quite yet, but almost. They just have to finish the lighting,” he replied, pushing to his feet. “But I can tell you now, I can’t wait to see ‘em. I spent a lot of time at them when I was a lad, and it’ll be nice to slip away for a slice of home. Now, let’s get this finished. The luau starts in eight hours, and I haven’t even got the fire goin’ yet.”

  We’d been planning the Hawaiian-themed party for a couple of months, and we were expecting a good turnout. I sure hoped they showed up because we’d invested a ton of money in the meat, booze, and supplies. For once, I had the night off and was planning to enjoy myself.

  Dimitri, an elf who made up the third leg of our bartending trio, had insisted on working it because I was on a nine-day stretch. Bob had been in Tennessee on a family emergency, so it had just been the two of us until our giant, hairy friend had gotten back the night before. He’d insisted on working this morning so I could oversee the arrangements.

  I cast a wistful glance toward the ocean and sighed before turning to the dozen coolers in the back of the resort’s pickup. No rest for the wicked, I supposed. The beach would have to wait.

  I waved Angus off when he reached for a cooler. “You go ahead and get the grill goin’. I know you’re already tight on time. I’ll get the rest of this stuff.”

  He gave a crisp nod. “Thanks, lass. I dinnae want to bail on ya, but I do need to get to work if we want to eat on time.”

  Two hours later, my clothes were wet with sweat, and the humidity was so thick, it felt like I was breathing my water rather than drinking it. It was all I could do not to give up for a few minutes to take a swim in the ocean. “Hey, beautiful!” A deep voice said from behind me as I pulled a

  box of paper plates from the front of the truck. A shiver raced down my spine as strong arms wrapped around me. I hadn’t seen Colin in almost a week, and my heart tripped a little as his breath tickled my ear. “How’s my favorite witch?”

  I turned in his arms and gave him a quick kiss before giving him a playful shove back. “Sweaty and gross. Before I did this, I cleaned the unicorn rest area. I’m sure the stable smells much sweeter than I do, so admire me from a distance.”

  “I sure hope they smell better.” Tempest, my Arctic fox familiar, wrinkled her cute little black nose. “If not, I feel sorry for them!”

  “Well look who decided to show up,” I said, rolling my eyes. “You can complain when you earn your own keep. ’Til then, you’re welcome.” She was not a fan of the heat even though she despised the cold. Odd, considering her breed came from the coldest place on Earth, but that was Tempest.

  “I was keeping Bob company,” she said. “I think he’s still a little sad that his aunt passed, so he needed me more than you did.”

  “Uh-huh,” Colin said, brow raised. “So that’s why you were curled up asleep in front of the fan with a half-eaten sandwich beside you.”

  “Oh, the sandwich wasn’t mine,” she said, flicking the tip of her long white tail as she strolled toward the coolers. “It must have fallen off a plate when Bob was clearing a table. I’d never leave a sandwich half-eaten.”

  “That’s true,” I said. Never let it be said that my little fox wasted food.

  “Well at any rate,” Colin said, “You weren’t giving comfort to Bob. You were reclining in the comfort of the fan while Des was out here busting her butt.”

  “Whatever,” Tempest said, hopping up on the tailgate of the truck. “It’s not like I could have done anything, anyway. What’s that amazing smell?” She poked her nose in the air and sniffed. I was surprised it had taken her that long to notice the notes of deliciousness pouring forth from the barbecue pit.

  “I just put the ribs and brisket on,” Angus called, closing the lid of the giant smoker and pointing at her with the long barbecue tongs. “But there’s no use beggin’. It’s gonna be hours yet before they’re done.”

  “Angus!” Tempest said, her face splitting into a wide smile. “I haven’t seen you forever. How ya been?”

  He rubbed his whiskers and tried to be gruff, but he didn’t manage to pull it off. His brown eyes sparkled. “I’ve been fine, ya little minx. But don’t come butterin’ me up hopin’ for scraps. There’s none to be had yet.”

  Tempest was a favorite around the kitchens and everywhere else on the resort, for that matter. Sure, she’s impressively food-driven, but she’s also funny, snarky, and an excellent listener. She’s just a good egg. I was lucky to have her as my familiar.

  While she caught up with Angus, Colin grabbed the box of paper plates and carried them to the large gazebo some guys from maintenance had erected earlier.

  “What else?” he asked, and I shook my head.

  “Nothin’ else to unload. Now I just need to spread the tablecloths. That’s it. The kitchen guys are bringin’ down the sides and buns and stuff later, so my work here is done. Now I can go home, shower, and then I’m all yours. What time do you have to leave tomorrow?”

  Besides being my hot, werewolf boyfriend—an expression he found highly amusing—Colin was also an attorney who mixed his services between both humans and magicals.

  He pulled me into his arms despite my half-hearted objection. “I happen to have the entire weekend off. I’ve already told people that my phone is gonna be off, so if they get into any trouble, they better be prepared to sit in jail ’til Monday. I’m all yours.”

  “Are you serious?” He hadn’t taken but one entire weekend off in all the months I’d known him. Instead, he’d come to visit on Friday afternoon, leave on Saturday morning, then slip another visit in through the week when he could.

  “As a heart attack,” he replied, giving me an Eskimo kiss. “You’re stuck with me through Monday morning.”

  I gave a little squeal and grinned. “Hot damn! Nothin’ is going to ruin this weekend!”

  Chapter 2
/>   AN HOUR LATER, I WAS cleaned up, in my bathing suit, and strolling along the beach with Colin. Tempest had decided to hang out with Angus, so it was just the two of us. That was a little surprising because Colin was one of her favorite people on the planet and she rarely missed a chance to hang out with him. Of course, so was Angus, and he had food.

  We talked about everything and nothing, just catching each other up on how our weeks had gone, then stopped and swam for a while. As a water witch, we were in my element, literally, and I pulled up some waves so we could body surf. I about had a heart attack when something under the water grabbed my ankle.

  Before I could get enough wits about me to gather my magic, a brunette head popped out of the water, laughing. Amber, a mermaid who was a regular at the resort and a good friend of mine, pushed away and flipped water at me with her turquoise tail.

  “What’s the matter, Des? Loch Ness Monster get ya?”

  Her brown eyes were sparkling, and I splashed water at her while I pulled in a few deep breaths and waited for my heart to drop back into my ribcage where it belonged.

  I scoffed. “I’m not scared of Nessie. I’ve actually met her, and she’s quite sweet. Sharks, on the other hand, give me the heebie-jeebies. They eat people, and that doesn’t sound like a good time to me.”

  “So do octopuses.” She scrunched her face. “Octopi? Whatever. The tentacled critters.”

  “They do not!” I protested, though once she’d said it, I found myself unsure. She was, after all, a mermaid. She didn’t try to tell me which brand of sneakers was best, so I figured I could at least take her at her word about the dietary habits of cephalopods. “I mean, aren’t most of them tiny?”

  She huffed a breath through her nose and flicked her slender wrist, causing the variety of gold and silver bracelets to jangle. Mermaids loved shiny objects, and she’d brought me some super-cool—and valuable—stuff from shipwrecks and popular swimming areas over the three years I’d known her. “What’s size got to do with it? And they do too eat people. Well, they kill them, anyway. I’ll have you know that the blue-ringed octopus is only like four inches across, and is poisonous enough to kill twenty-five men with one bite. But don’t worry. There aren’t any around here. They’re in the Pacific.”