Read Online Witchy Woman by Karen Leabo - Free Book Online Page B

sofa, but before her rear even made contactwith the cushions, she wiggled sideways and landed in one of his two tweed club chairs instead.
    “The sofa’s more comfortable,” he said.
    “Not for me.”
    He puzzled over her explanation, but she didn’t elaborate. So he shrugged and launched a whirlwind cleaning tour of the living room, the leavings of which he thrust down his garbage chute. Then he grabbed two glasses from the kitchen along with the unopened bottle of cognac.
    He found Tess sitting exactly where he’d left her, perched nervously on the edge of the club chair, hands clenched, eyes darting around.
    “You look like you could use a snort of this,” Nate said, sitting on the sofa, wishing he could have finagled a way to sit beside her. He poured a generous measure of the amber liquid into each snifter, then handed her one.
    “I think we should drink to Judy’s swift recovery,” he said, sincerely meaning it. As little time as he’d spent with Judy, he genuinely liked her. And he could tell that Tess loved her like a sister.
    She nodded and flashed the beginnings of a brave smile. “Yes, that’s an excellent idea.” They clinked their glasses, then each took a sip. “Mmm,” Tess said after swallowing. “Burns all the way down. Good.”
    “It’ll warm you all the way to your toenails too.”
    After his second sip of brandy, he set the snifter on his mahogany coffee table. That’s when he noticed one of his reporter’s notebooks, sitting on the table inches from Tess’s right knee. Aw, hell. All his notes aboutMoonbeam Majick were in there. If she should stumble onto that information, she would know that he’d engineered their supposedly random meeting at the antique shop. She would know why he was pursuing her, why he was so curious about her, and she wouldn’t be happy about it.
    Although he had to admit, his curiosity extended far beyond journalistic instincts at this point. Part of him, that small part that was still innocent and believed in fairy tales, wished he’d never offered to write this story. It wished he’d really been shopping for a doll for his older sister and had chanced a meeting with a pretty blonde he’d known nothing about except that he liked her figure and her smile and the hypnotic sound of her voice.
    That tiny, irrational part of him was wishing like crazy he had a chance in hell of getting her to forget all this curse nonsense and go out to a movie with him.
    Yeah, right. He would be lucky if she didn’t throw his brandy in his face and abandon him to his fate with that damn cat.
    Still, if he snatched the notebook away now, she would be suspicious. He would simply not leave her alone with it again. He would sit there, guarding it like a German shepherd, till it was time to take her home.
    “So,” he said when she sat back in her chair, looking as if maybe the brandy was taking effect. “Tell me the whole story about this wretched statue.”
    “You won’t believe it,” she said flatly. “You’ll just think I’m a total basket case.”
    “Try me.”
    If anything, she seemed even more reluctant. “Look, the brandy is nice and everything, but why don’t I just call a cab—”
    “Try me,” he said again. “I can’t guarantee I’ll believe you a hundred percent, but I promise not to laugh at you. And I’ll take you home as soon as you’re done.”
    “Promise? It’ll sound pretty outlandish to you.”
    He nodded. “Start at the beginning.”
    “Well, okay. See, no one knows exactly where the cat came from originally, but it’s really old. Back in the 1800s, there was this Gypsy woman who lived in the woods near a town in Connecticut. The townspeople didn’t have a doctor, or a priest, so they relied on the Gypsy for lots of things—cures for illnesses, blessings, good-luck charms, and some charms that weren’t so nice. The Gypsy had a thriving business, until my great-grandmother—her name was Lass—moved to town. She was a …” Tess