WILLEM (The Witches of Wimberley Book 1) Read Online Free Page A

picked clothes up off the floor and put them in the duffel that I lugged to the laundry downstairs when it couldn’t possibly wait another day.
    With an environment that was semi-presentable and a personal presentation that would cause most women’s mouths to water, I was ready. Or I would be after coffee.
    I was more scared of venturing into the kitchen than I was of my lack of a plan for the future, but like the macho southern man I was, I forged ahead.
    There was no window in the kitchen, but there was a slider door and balcony on the other side of the dinette. I flipped on the light and, more or less, stood there frozen. I may have gaped. I’m not sure. I know I was surprised.
    The kitchen was spotless. Everything was in its place, whether drawer, cupboard, or cabinet and the surfaces almost gleamed. I must tell you that I’d never seen the kitchen like that in all the years I’d call that dump home. I realized for the first time that I hadn’t known what the kitchen looked like. Not really.
    As if that wasn’t spooky enough, the coffee machine had been set up with water and coffee in a fresh filter. We had an old-style setup, but I promised myself that someday I would have one of those single cup doobies. Fancy. For sure.
    Hell. Maybe Hector was turning over a new leaf, too. If he was, I’d have to stop thinking of him as Jabba. I mean a kitchen that clean deserves some respect. Coffee ready-to-go deserves respect plus long-lasting friendship.
    So I turned the machine on and leaned against the counter smiling.
    On the very day I should have been drowning my sorrows in country music and alcohol, dreading taking a bus to sweet home Alabama, and dragging my ass into my parents’ house to say, “Surprise! I’m a thirty-year-old without a degree. My only viable skill is that I can tend bar and I’m living with you again.”
    That should have made me depressed enough to think about taking a carousel ride on the Santa Monica Pier and then jumping off. Of course, that probably wouldn’t be a solution because I’m a really strong swimmer. Survival instinct would kick in and force me to swim to shore. The idea of not being able to commit suicide by drowning was depressing. Or it should be. But I didn’t feel depressed. At all.
    The only part of that scenario that was appealing was the carousel ride. Now that I think about it, I might be a little depressed about that last part because, after all, I am a grown man and, as such, know that it’s out of sorts with my image to find merry-go-rounds fascinating.
    That was the stream of consciousness that was lazily filtering through my head while I waited for the coffee pot to do that gurgling hissing thing it does right at the end of the cycle to indicate it’s finished. Or dying.
    I stirred sugar and coffee cream into the cup and then stood there wondering what to do with the spoon. A kitchen that looked showroom pristine just shouldn’t be spoiled with an errant spoon. So I rinsed it off. Thoroughly. Dried it. And put it back in the drawer.
    No one the wiser.
    It had been the most in-depth and complicated preparation for a phone call in the history of Alexander Graham Bell. All was done. No more delays or excuses.
    So I returned to my room, closed the door and, for reasons I wouldn’t be able to explain, locked it. I retrieved the card from the Hummer and set it on the bedspread next to the phone. What a fine pair of items they made. A phone and its reason for existing, a potential call.
    Taking a deep breath like I was embarking on breaking a channel-swim record, I dialed the number on the card. Now I was holding the phone next to my ear with one hand and holding the card with the other so that I could continue looking at it while I waited for an answer. I sat the card down and took a sip of coffee.
    Ringing stopped. “Mr. Draiocht.” This was said by a man with an English accent and a no-nonsense business-like tone.
    I sat blinking trying to assess how I felt