WhiskeyBottleLover Read Online Free

he spoke between frantic pants.
    “I cannot. You made the wish. I simply granted it.”
    The whiskey bottle pulled from his hand, floated out in
front of him and hung in the air. Hayes watched it carefully. This couldn’t be
happening. None of this could be possible. He’d had too much to drink, that’s
all. It happened before. He hallucinated strange, large, hairy animals walking
on two legs in the mountains. Yeah, in the morning he’d wake up with a headache
and dry mouth.
    “I wish you luck, my friend,” the stranger said and then
turned his back and walked away.
    “No!” The last of the mist absorbed into him. Even with the
weight of the shackles, he felt himself lighten as if his body didn’t exist.
The cork of the whiskey bottle popped out, dangled in the air and then he felt
himself being sucked inside. “No!”

Chapter Two
    Present day, central Pennsylvania
     
    “I’ll give you twenty bucks for the box.” Chance Cook
enjoyed haggling over the price of a box full of odds and ends. It got her
blood pumping and the juices flowing. Untold treasures could be found in boxes
like this.
    “Thirty,” the woman counteroffered.
    “Twenty-two and not a penny more. You know as well as I do
the stuff in here isn’t worth that much.” God, she hoped she was wrong. All she
needed was one little item made of gold or inlaid with a diamond and she’d make
her money back plus profit.
    “Okay. Twenty-two.”
    Chance handed the money over, picked up the box and headed
toward her car. She had one more stop to make this morning and then she could
return home and go through her treasures. Her old Honda was packed to the gills
and Chance had to push and shove to get the box inside. If she found something
significant at the farm sale she was out of luck.
    After punching the address for the sale into her GPS, she
set out on the forty-five-minute drive. It was barely eight thirty in the
morning and she’d already hit two yard sales. But making a living off other
people’s junk meant getting started early before the good junk was gone.
    Sometimes she got lucky and found valuable items that she
sold on the internet, making enough to pay her bills for a couple of months.
The rest she repurposed and sold in her little shop, The Treasure Trove. She
certainly wasn’t going to get rich but she lived a comfortable life and that’s
all she wanted.
    Chance turned off the main road as directed by her GPS and
headed down a country lane lined with colorful trees. Fall was her favorite
time of the year with all the color. You couldn’t beat the warm temperatures
during the day and crisp nights that made for comfy sleeping.
    The tiny little house she bought a year ago wasn’t anything
fancy but it was sound, warm and perfect. Out back she had a little barn where
she did most of her work and kept her items before taking them in to the shop.
Yeah, life had done a one-eighty for her and she couldn’t be happier.
    Up ahead the farm came into view, its quaint appearance
disheveled by about twenty cars parked in the yard. Maybe she should have come
here first. All the good treasures were surely taken by now. She found a spot
to park, slid from her car and breathed in deeply, enjoying the fresh fall air.
Leaves crunched beneath her feet as she hurried toward the house.
    Several people who’d already purchased their lot passed.
Chance tried to ignore what they carried. No point in becoming depressed over
items she missed. She had to concentrate on what had been left behind for her.
Shoving her hands into her jacket pockets, she scanned the tables as she
meandered by. Knickknacks, a box of buttons, odds and ends, kitchen supplies,
some unique picture frames—it all turned the wheels inside her head.
    Unfortunately she already had a store full of this sort of
thing. Buying more would be senseless. No, she needed to find items that
popped, something that would feed her creative mind. At the end of the house
she saw some old boards stacked