Read Online Never Been Witched by Annette Blair - Free Book Online Page B

love for the child warmed the air, overflowed, and touched Destiny: utterly powerful, beautiful, and, surprisingly, given the fact that Meggie was dead, life-giving.

Chapter Ten
    SWEATY from his run, Morgan took another shower and changed into a fresh chamois shirt, unbuttoned, and jeans, buttoned for his own safety. From a front upstairs window, he watched Destiny hiking back toward the lighthouse carrying a bouquet of wildflowers, bittersweet, and oak sprigs, and trailing butterflies for a good tenth of a mile behind her, her wide-brimmed red hat flopping in the breeze.
    Though walking alone, she spoke with animation to, well, several nobodies, judging by the movement of her head from side to side as she addressed the shadows. A kook with invisible friends, though her mention of Meggie last night had carried more coincidence than he cared for.
    He met Destiny in the kitchen where she set the live flowers into an inch of water in the copper sink, and the dry ones on the cabinet beside it. Then she filled a bowl with Lucky Charms, poured milk over them, and took her breakfast out to the dock to eat while she dangled her feet in the water.
    He ate Wheat Chex over the blue-cotton-skirted sink and watched Destiny out the window. “Sick bastard,” he said, washing the bowl. Why didn’t he just go out there and sit beside her like he wanted to?
    He went up to the room where he’d set up his drafting table and architectural supplies, because it pulled in the best natural light, and got to work on his design for the lighthouse.
    He noticed a while later, when he got up for an apple and a glass of milk, that Destiny had set up her easel outside. He went out to take a peek at her work, surprised at the scope of her talent.
    “What?” she asked.
    He shrugged. “You’re looking at a gorgeous seascape, but you’re painting a purple house with a blue It’s a Boy flag out front.
    “Oh, I don’t paint what’s in front of me. I paint what I see in my mind’s eye.”
    “That’s scary.”
    “No, we had a grandmother who painted Paxton Castle in great detail from the Salem dock, where she could never have seen the detail. That painting helped bring my sisters and me here to the island in the first place.”
    “Double scary.”
    “The baby boy in this house is a big deal. I sense a lifetime dream come true and lots of celebrating.”
    When a big, fat raindrop hit her painting, Morgan helped her gather her things and led her up to the room where he worked on his art, his architecture.
    “I won’t bother you,” she said. “I need silence to work, too.”
    He didn’t like working with anyone else in the room, so why had he brought her here? He said nothing and helped her set up by the second window. For the rest of the morning and into the afternoon, they worked in silence, while his awe of her talent grew, along with intimacy and a palpable sexual awareness, on his part at least.
    At suppertime, she began to chop vegetables and bread chicken, while he opened a can of beans. “Is that what you’re going to eat?” she asked.
    “I eat a lot of beans, here,” he said. “No problem. I’ll go upstairs so you can have your own space.”
    “Oh for heaven’s sake. I’ll cook for both of us. I like to cook. My sisters and I practically raised each other, so we’ve been cooking forever. Just find some kind of dinner table, okay?”
    “There’s nothing in this house that resembles a kitchen table. Never has been.”
    She took her pots off the monster stove’s fire and went into the parlor. “There’s a table. Bring the one we used last night.”
    “That skinny side table?”
    “Bring it.”
    When he got it there, he was surprised to see Destiny get beneath it. “Morgan hold up the two wings, while I unhook and swing out the legs.” She worked some kind of miracle down there, stood, and wiped her hands on her jeans. “You can let the table rest on the legs now. There you go. It’s a gateleg table, now our dinner