Authors: Maralee Lowder
And then there was Cassie.
She was a woman who clearly preferred a nice stroll in the fresh air to the confines of an automobile.
When he was with her
,
they just naturally walked.
And he enjoyed walking with her very much.
As he filled his lungs with the pine and sea scented air, he suddenly realized he hadn’t had a cigarette in hours, hadn’t even thought of lighting up.
Strange.
He glanced quickly at Cassie, savoring her healthy good looks and open, honest face.
Could this delightful little witch actually be having some mystical effect on him, he wondered?
Yep, it must be witchcraft, all right
.
He grinned at the absurdity of the notion.
Cassie liked walking with Mac. Their walking styles matched perfectly
-
not too fast, yet not too slow.
She especially liked having him here at her side.
True, she would have liked being a little closer to him, but still, this was nice.
She imagined how pleasant it would be if he were to slip his arm around her, drawing her close to his warm body.
As if he could read her mind instead of the other way around, he reached out for her, encircling her shoulders with his arm.
“The fog has a way of chilling you to the bone, no matter how hot
the day has been,” he commented
as if needing an explanation for his actions.
Leaning as close to him as she could without appearing obvious, she let
herself
absorb his delicious heat, inhaling his scent deep into her lungs.
Yes, t
his was exactly how she knew
it would be with him.
It felt absolutely perfect.
She tipped her head into the curve of his shoulder.
A perfect fit.
She had known it would be.
They walked to the outskirts of town in silence.
Darkness engulfed them as they left the lights of Port
Bellmont
behind.
Cassie slipped a small flashlight out of her handbag and turned it on as they took a turn away from the ocean up towards the encroaching redwoods, heading towards her tiny cabin.
It was set high on a bluff over the sea, surrounded by towering trees.
“I wish there were a full moon tonight,” she said as they paused for a moment at the edge of the clearing in the woods.
“As dark as it is, I imagine this all looks pretty spooky to you.
But it isn’t really.
Not when you can really see it.”
The sweet, spicy scent of blooming flowers
,
mixed with sea and redwoods, blended into an unforgettably delectable aroma.
A soft breeze sifted through tall trees, whispering a welcome.
And in the darkness below, the sea sent gentle, rhythmic waves over huge boulders.
Mac had never heard sweeter music.
“I don’t n
eed to see it to know it’s not spooky
, Cassie.
I can smell it and hear it, a
nd that tells me that this place is enchanted, just as you are enchanted.”
Where
had those words
come f
rom, he wondered with amazement.
They were damn near poetic and f
ar from his usual style.
She laughed softly as she allowed herself to lean closer to him.
She knew she shouldn’t tempt fate like t
his
but she couldn’t help herself.
The need to feel his warmth overshadowed all her intentions to keep their relationship on a business level.
His arm tightened around her in response.
He felt his
heart accelerate at this hint of
a new intimacy between them.
Without speaking, they slowly turned toward each other.
They stood there for a moment, lost in time, simply gazing into each other’s eyes.
Cassie’s handbag and flashlight dropped to the ground as she reached up to slip her arms around his neck.
He
was so tall, h
is lips so far away.
He solved her dilemma quite nicely by leaning down and capturing her lips with his.
Fire enveloped him as the kiss deepened.
A fire he would never have believed possible
spread through him.
It might have been his first kiss.
Was this the kiss of an angel o
r the kiss of a devil?
Whichever it was, it pierced his heart and poured into his soul.
He never wanted it to end.
She gloried in sensations she had only dreamed of.
Oh, she had been kissed before, but never like this.
She loved the feel of his lips on hers, the taste of his tongue as it hungrily searched her mouth.
She joined her tongue with his in the search, her body begging her to learn every detail of this man who had come to mean so much to her in such a short time.
Their panting breaths joined the music of nature as they pulled apart at last.
“Will you come in?” she whispered.
“Do you know what would happen if I did?” he asked.
Her gaze not breaking his, she nodded.
He tightened his arms about her, drawing her body to his until they nearly melded into one being.
His arousal pressed against her, attesting to the fact that his body wanted what hers ached for.
But then he pulled away, allowing a cold, dark space to come between them.
“Not yet, sweetheart,” he sighed with regret.
He couldn’t believe he had said those words.
He couldn’t remember ever wanting a woman more, yet he knew he must leave.
Her gentl
e smile told him she understood - a
t least he hoped she did.
She was too special, too perfect for him to
touch
until the time was right.
He just prayed he’d know when that time had come.
“When the time is right,” she said on a soft breath, her lips lifting in the most appealing smile Mac had ever seen.
It didn’t surprise him in the least that she had read his thoughts.
What did surprise him was that he was perfectly comfortable with the fact that she could.
“For now I think you need to get in that little house of yours and get some sleep.
I don’t imagine you’ve had a lot lately.”
“No, I have
n’t b
ut I’m sure I will now.
I’m so relieved about mother.
Maybe her being let out on bail is a sign that everything is going to be all right after all.”
He wanted to reassure her
more than anything in the world
but he couldn’t bring himself to lie to her.
He prayed she was right, but something told him she was wrong, dead wrong.
Chapter 4
One glance at his room at the Sea View Motor Inn convinced Mac that in the future he would have to either take
Sarge
with him wherever he went or get rid of the pesky creature.
As Mac entered his room he was confronted with a very proud puppy sitting amidst what appeared to be at least three fully un
wound
rolls of toilet tissue, not to mention toweling and disheveled bed linen.
To the dog’s commendation, the newspaper Mac had spread on the bathroom floor appe
ared to have been used properly, b
ut nothing, absolutely nothing else, was where it should have been.
As Mac entered,
Sarge
came running towards him with his comically rolling gait, completely tangled in a long strip of paper.
His grinning face spoke eloquently of the fun he had been creating for himself.
“All right, you old reprobate, you’ve had your fun,” Mac reproached him as he reached to untangle the wriggling pup
py from the mess he had created,
“but for now
you’d better stay out of my sight while I clean up after your little party, or I may just decide to take you back where I got you.”
His reprimand was met with a soft tongue to Mac’s hand as he reached down to gather the litter into one large heap.
Mac’s progress in replacing the disheveled bedspread was impeded as
Sarge
planted himself firmly on Mac’s left foot.
Leaning heavily against his new best friend’s leg, the dog turned adoring eyes on the scowling human’s face.
“Oh, what the hell,” Mac cursed as he reached down for the squirming mass of puppy.
“You were just lonely, weren’t you, boy?”
His question was answered by a soft, moist tongue bathing whatever portion of Mac’s skin it could reach.
As he cleaned up the mess
Sarge
had so graciously provided, Mac gave their current living conditions some serious thought.
Clearly leaving papers on the floor in the bathroom, along with a bowl of water and plenty of kibble, was not going to work for this dog.
Mac would have to make other arrangements soon or take the pup back to Cassie’s shop.
It surprised him when he realized that taking
Sarge
back was no longer an option.
When had the pug-ugly dog sn
uck into his heart, he wondered.
“I guess I’ve got myself a dog, all right,” he said aloud as he scratched behind the puppy’s ear.
“And now, what the hell am I supposed to do with you?
What landlord in his right mind would want a pain in the butt dog like you around?”
But then he remembered Mary Beth’s and Naomi’s empty bed and breakfast.
Hadn’t Mary Beth said she would be delighted to have the two of them as guests?
Although he had felt sorry that the two women were having difficulties renting out their rooms because of the witch scandal, the idea of his staying in one of the fussy Victorian rooms had more than put him off the idea.
But now, when he thought of the large back yard they had offered to let
Sarge
roam, plus the affection they had shown the pup, he found the idea more and more to his liking.
He was also not unaware that his living there would give him just that much more of an edge over the competition.
Other members of the press were everywhere he went.
In fact, other than the bed-and-breakfast, there probably wasn’t a spare room in town not taken over by one or more of them.
And, since the good Reverend Hicks had done a superb job of spreading his message of hate throughout the
community, scaring away patrons from their door, even the bravest of the media had given the sisters’ inn a wide berth. Being a superstitious, not to mention parsimonious, lot, none of his compatriots had dared to stay at the Mariner’s Inn.
In fact they had totally avoided it, except to snoop, of course.
Mac smiled to himself at the thought that he would actually be living under the same
roof with two bona fide
witches,
although h
e couldn’t think of any two women less like most people’s preconceived notions of what witches were than the Bishop sisters, Naomi and Mary Beth.
Both still in their late twenties, they comfortably shared the duties of running the huge Victorian relic.
Naomi, the younger of the two, was the romantic one.
With her long hair twisted into a loose knot at th
e top of her head and her ankle-
length skirts covered with a cut work apron, she gave every appearance of the perfect Victorian homemaker.
It was she who had used her training in interior decorating to turn the rambling old inn into a warm, inviting retreat.
And it was her wonderful talents in the kitchen that filled the house with mouthwatering scents.
Mary Beth, just one year older than her sister, had the business acumen it took to turn the modest inheritance the
sisters had received from a grandmother and managed to stretch it into renovating the old house.
Mac had seen a picture of the place when they had first bought it and marveled at the transformation.
Mary Beth’s short curly brown hair perfectly accented her sparkling, intelligent eyes.
Never still for more than a moment, the woman exuded energy.
Yes, living, under the same roof with the Bishop
sisters
, however briefly, promised to be very interesting.
He had never been turned on by Victorian decor, it was far too fussy for his tastes, but being so near the young witches was likely to be very enlightening, not to mention entertaining.
Mac and
Sarge
were comfortably ensconced in their ground floor room by tea time the next afternoon.
Mary Beth had selected tha
t particular room because of it
s access to the fenced-in back yard, perfect for
Sarge
.