Making Magic Read Online Free Page B

whispering through the trees that hung over the rippling water and faint laughter from the tavern down the street as accompaniment, he settled in to carve.

Chapter Two
    Somewhere south of Blacksburg, in the pause between two songs on the playlist meant to keep her awake, Thea finally heard something that reminded her of the mountain’s song. The moonless night showed her nothing of the landscape she was traveling through beyond the endless highway stretching in front of her. She couldn’t even see the ridges of the Appalachians, even though she knew the interstate ran alongside them for her entire route.
    She’d forgotten what a long haul it was, driving to Patton Springs from Philadelphia. She was grateful for the eighteen-wheelers and their drivers. Their overwhelming numbers kept her awake out of a sheer sense of self-preservation. And their uninhibited flirting, involving creative horn blasting and running-light blinking, helped as well. They weren’t flirting with her, mind you. They were flirting with her red BMW.
    Finally she had heard a whisper of her mountain singing to her again. Perhaps a cricket had leaped into the car at her last stop and was protesting the unexpected journey. But something had hinted of the lullaby she had tucked away beneath her heart long ago to sustain her—hidden so thoroughly that she had lost it for a while. A gentle composition that included the cheerful babble of water over stone, a susurration of wind through green leaves, the lively warble of a mockingbird, and an enthusiastic chorus of peepers in the dark. Something inside her that had been too tightly wound for far too long loosened a bit.
    Only a bit. She still had more than an hour to go before she could collapse and sleep, assuming there was a place for her to sleep at all.
    Daniel and Mel had sent her their wedding invitation, and they had told her repeatedly that they wanted her to come home. But even at Pops’s funeral…
    No, she wouldn’t think about that. Not yet. She grabbed for her travel mug only to find it empty, again. Her nose was thoroughly stuffed up, her throat was sore again, the headache was back with a vengeance, and she had run out of aspirin. It was time for one more truck stop, one more fill up, some aspirin and perhaps, by the time she forced down a couple of fluffy Tennessee biscuits to soak up all the coffee sloshing around in her stomach, the sky would be brightening up and she could see where she was headed, instead of just feeling it.
    She took the exit to Baileyton and pulled in to the brightly lit truck stop that had been a fixture at that exit since she could remember. It had changed since she’d seen it last. Some national chain had taken over. Perhaps that meant the bathrooms would be a bit cleaner than she remembered.
    Even shy of five in the morning the place was pretty busy, between the very early commuters, the very late shift workers, the ubiquitous truckers, and now one unemployed lawyer from Philadelphia.
    At the pumps she shoved her feet back into her heels, clambered out feeling stiff, and frowned at the latest price of premium. As she pumped the gas, she wondered why her father had gifted her with a sporty vehicle that he really wanted for himself. She forced a smile at the man at the next pump filling his mini-van, who was giving her car a lust-filled once over. Better it than her.
    Shaking her head at how much it would cost to fill the tank, she drove into the last parking space at the front of the truck stop and wondered if she should try to dig a change of clothes out of the mess in the trunk. She hadn’t had the presence of mind to toss an overnight bag with essentials on top of everything in the back seat. And her suit had long ago passed from wrinkled to disreputable and was closing in on fragrant vagrant—smelling of stale coffee, fried food, truck stop restrooms and fear. She fluffed her limp hair, brushed off her skirt and grabbed her wallet.
    As she pushed up out of