Seventh Seal - Jacquelyn Faye Page 0,62

the angel mad at you?"

I chewed what was in my mouth and swallowed. I could manage one word with a mouth full of food, but I didn't want to pepper her with chewed bread. "Well, that wasn't a real angel. It was a bad guy pretending to be one."

"Oh." She waddled around me and sat on the bench on the other side of my basket.

"Would you like some bread? It's fresh."

"Mommy says I shouldn't take things from strangers."

And mommies shouldn't let their children run around the park alone. I looked around for her, but she was talking to another woman by the statue in the middle of the park. "Well. My name is Dot. What's yours?"

"Caroline."

"Well, Caroline, we're not strangers now, are we?"

The little girl giggled and shook her head happily. I ripped off a hunk of bread and handed it to her. She greedily started munching on the corner, cute as a button. "You're a real witch?"

"Yep. Does that scare you?"

"You're not green. And you don't have any warts. So, you must be a good witch."

"Most of the time. But my mother…"

"She's green and has warts?" She blinked in astonishment.

"Yep. And a foul temper. She lives in a swamp and has long claws at the ends of her fingers."

"Why does she have a foul temper?"

"Somebody dropped a house on her sister!" I giggled.

The girl's mother waved goodbye at her friend and started heading toward us. I waited for the moment of panic when she realized I was talking to her child, but she smiled sadly, ignoring me right up until the moment she walked right past us. I looked down at Caroline and then turned in my seat. "Aren't you forgetting someone?" I pointed at the seat next to me when the woman turned around. She tilted her head.

"Who?"

"This girl isn't yours?" I started to panic.

"What girl?" She gave me a strange look and kept walking away.

Horrified, I looked down at Caroline who had a tear leaking from the corner of her eye. "Mommy can't see me," she said sadly and faded from view.

∞ ∞ ∞

"Next time you're going to use me as an excuse not to have dinner with your ex-boyfriend and my cousin, you should let me know beforehand," Jimmy said with a chuckle and opened the truck door.

"Well, how the hell was I supposed to know your cousin would have called you within five minutes. Hard to tell her that I can't make it because my date had other plans when he already agreed," I said as I climbed up into the truck and smoothed my dress beneath me to protect my backside from the cold pleather.

Jimmy shut the door and walked around the truck, getting in on the other side and starting it up. "Good point. I'm sure I can come up with an excuse if you really don't want to go…"

"No. It's fine. I can be a big girl for one night and suck it up. Plus, Sherry seemed really excited."

"She is. Even though she's the mayor, she doesn't have many friends or get out much," he said thoughtfully.

"Why? She's super sweet and super cute. She could have more guys than me if she wanted to."

"She's not a witch, Dot. But she's…quirky." He laughed and put the truck into gear, backing out of my driveway slowly.

"Quirky?"

"Intuitive. She can usually tell what people are thinking."

"And?"

"If you were a guy, would you want your date to know what you're thinking?"

"Pervs?"

"To say the least."

"Oye."

"But she can't seem to read witches. She could never tell what I was thinking, so I'm guessing Derek is a nice change."

"And the Irish accent doesn't hurt."

"Or his sad eyes," Jimmy added.

"Don't get any fucking ideas. No."

He chuckled.

"And you behave yourself tonight. No funny business."

"In front of my cousin? I don't think you have to worry."

"This is you we're talking about. Of course, I'm worried."

"Ewww. That's just gross. I don't even want to think about it." He made a few gagging noises to top it off. "It was a month before she could look me in the eye after the pencident."

"What the hell is a pencident?"

"You know."

"Enlighten me."

"The incident. With the pen."

"Oh. That pencident." I blushed.

"Just remember, payback's a bitch."

"Blah blah blah. Talking pretty big for a man without his wingman." Just to make sure, I checked the back seat. "Where's Dennis?"

"Pulling an extra shift. One of the guys was…sick."

"Sick?"

He sighed. "Scared shitless. Even the fire department has its share of racist assholes in OWL T-shirts…"

"Oh."

"Yeah. Kind of ironic that he asked his