A Reckless Witch - By Debora Geary Page 0,81
He wasn’t laughing either. “What do we do now?”
He met her gaze—and she felt her bones melt. “We eat. Those punk girls left my favorite food.”
Lauren closed her eyes in one last-ditch effort to find the control mechanism on her heart. “No. They left mine.”
His laugh was low and long—and reached deep into her belly. Uh, oh. She felt her brain trying to resist. This was Devin Sullivan, world traveler and adrenaline junkie. No way this worked—even if he did love linguine.
She could feel the panic beating in her ribs. Small deals could be made on the fly. Big ones—well, big ones needed time. And thought. And sanity.
None of which were going to happen in a room with Puccini, linguine, and the gravitational pull of a man she still needed to think about really, really hard. Lauren reached for coherent words. “I think I need to go.”
He caught her hands, words soft and inescapable. “You don’t want this?”
“I don’t know.” Honesty fought with the fluttering panic. “Maybe.”
He grinned, and the intensity in the room plummeted. “Then eat some linguine with me. We’ll have dinner, curl up on The Monster later. Watch a movie. Plot revenge on those nieces of mine.”
Lauren just stared. She knew expert negotiating tactics when she saw them. Devin Sullivan was a very dangerous man. No way was she going to hold onto “maybe” through linguine and a date with the Monster.
Her phone beeped. There’s tiramisu in the fridge for dessert. We love him. You could too. Ginia.
Oh, God. She was in really serious trouble.
Chapter 19
Moira unraveled some wool from her ball and continued knitting. She’d taken to popping into the Witches’ Lounge for an hour or two every day. It was warm and cozy, and someone usually dropped by.
With no warning, her chair and the rest of Witches’ Lounge suddenly shimmered and disappeared—and she found herself dumped rather unceremoniously on a beach. With purple water and orange palm trees. Oh, my.
Sierra landed beside her, spewing apology. “I’m so sorry! I didn’t know anyone was in the Lounge. Hang on, I’ll get you back there.”
Another moment and her chair reappeared under her bottom, back in the Witches’ Lounge, much to Moira’s relief. Sierra stood right beside her, still looking horrified. “Hello, my dear. What was that wee trip about?”
“I’m trying to write a program to turn this into a beach.” Sierra’s words tripped over each other. “The triplets wanted to know what Hawaii looked like, so I was going to show them.” She scowled. “It’s more complicated than I thought.”
Ah, and weren’t so many things. Moira smiled and pointed to the seat beside her. “Well, the colors did look a bit odd, but the sand seemed very real.”
Sierra sat down, sighing. “Sand’s easy. Water’s really hard. I don’t know why. I thought…” her voice trailed off, yearning written all over her face.
It tugged on Moira’s heart. “What is it, sweet girl?”
“I wanted to go swimming.” The girl’s voice was quiet and sad. “The water here’s nice enough, but it’s cold. I miss the warm water.”
Missed the connection to her mama, too—that was plain as day.
Fortunately, this was a problem easily fixed. Moira collected her knitting and stood up. “Meet me back here in ten minutes.” She smiled. “Wear a swimsuit and bring a towel.”
Sierra stared, speechless, as Moira activated the spell to transport out of Realm back home. She needed a swimsuit too—and perhaps another traveler or two.
~ ~ ~
Nat giggled as her husband squirmed yet again. “Hold still, or I’ll end up sticking you with one of these pins.”
He was tempted to wiggle one more time just to hear her laugh. “There’s got to be someone more Aervyn’s size who can model this while you finish it.” Several someones.
“None that know how to keep a secret.”
She had a point there. Well, maybe he could amuse himself while he waited. A quick flick of power, and he activated the spell. The cloak shimmered and disappeared, along with most of the guy wearing it. As Sierra would say, “awesome cool.”
Nat laughed at the part of her husband she could see. “We know the invisibility spells works, silly. Now bring it back so I can get it hemmed—otherwise, superboy will trip and break his nose as he skulks around.”
Jamie shimmered back into visibility. “You know Nell’s going to kill us for this, right?” He was pretty sure giving the most powerful witchling in the world a Harry Potter invisibility cloak wasn’t going to make her life any easier. However,