Witchy Woman Read Online Free Page A

there.”
    “Sounds good.”
    Tess realized the conversation was quickly winding down, and she still hadn’t achieved her true purpose. “How’s your finger? Did you wash out the cut?”
    “The cut was so tiny, I couldn’t even find it when Igot home. I appreciate the concern, but I don’t think you need to worry about gangrene.”
    He was teasing her, but in such a good-natured way that she actually enjoyed it. “You can never be too careful,” she said. “I had an uncle who once got a splinter in his toe. He ignored it, and they ended up amputating his foot. Danger can lurk in the most unlikely places.”
    “Hey, no kidding. I almost got killed in a T station today.”
    “Really?” She was relieved at how easy it had been to manipulate the conversation. “What happened?”
    “There were a bunch of people waiting for the next train. When it came into view, this nutcase bulldozed his way through the crowd, knocking people over right and left, screaming something about being first to board. I got pushed onto the track right in front of the train. If I hadn’t scrambled back out of that pit in a hurry, I would’ve been dog food.”
    Tess shivered as the scraps of her vision took on a new meaning. “Thank goodness you have quick reflexes,” she said. The memory of Mr. Woodland, the talk-show host, and his tragic end came suddenly, uncomfortably to mind. He had touched her shoulder, and she had immediately envisioned the accident. She’d always regretted that she hadn’t given him a better, more specific warning.
    Not that he would have believed her. He had enjoyed having her as a guest on his show, but he’d been a total skeptic.
    Tess quickly concluded her conversation with Nate,worried that in her present state of mind she might slip and reveal something she would rather keep to herself.
    When she was alone with just the silence around her, she once again held Nate’s card between her hands. She was suddenly voraciously curious about him. This time, however, she felt absolutely nothing, indicating she had already sensed all the stored information that was hers to receive from this particular object.
    It was probably just as well. It wasn’t fair for her to learn things about Nate with extrasensory methods when he couldn’t do the same with her. She resolved that she’d have to glean any other information she wanted about him in the ordinary way.
    Nate couldn’t believe his good luck. He had asked Tess to bring Judy along on their antiquing jaunt because he hadn’t wanted Tess to feel pressured or uneasy. He was going to play this little fish very carefully. But as it turned out, Judy was busy with something else. Nate had Tess to himself for the entire afternoon.
    He couldn’t even hint, of course, that he harbored anything but a professional interest in her knowledge of antiques—although he did. The more he talked to her, the more he saw of her, the more he was drawn to her.
    Maybe it was a good thing he couldn’t act on his attraction. How wise was it, after all, to become involved with a witch?
    She looked even less witchlike than she had at theirfirst meeting. Wearing a fuzzy, oversized lavender sweater that skimmed her thighs, white corduroy jeans, and lavender canvas sneakers, she presented a wholesome-but-sexy image that made him want to protect her and seduce her all at the same time.
    But she was Moonbeam, of that he was sure. The warning she’d given him as they’d stood on the sidewalk had been enough to send a shiver down his spine; almost getting squashed by a subway train not twenty minutes later had been downright spooky.
    Not that he believed in psychic stuff. But he did believe in subconscious suggestion. His own carelessness no doubt had caused the near accident, carelessness brought on by his preoccupation with the warning.
    He wondered if Don Woodland, too, had been rattled by Moonbeam’s stark admonition, so rattled that he’d walked out in front of a car. That might be