To Love A Witch (A Novel Nibbles title) (5 page)

Annie Get Your Gun was one of Romy’s favorite
musicals, but she wasn’t overly fond of the scene where she had to
go flouncing around in a wedding dress. It tended to remind her of
the ending, where she got to lose a shooting duel with her
husband-to-be to soothe his ego. Tough way for a strong female role
to end.

However, you couldn’t rewrite a great musical,
even if the ending was a little behind the times. And, as Annie,
she got to sing her heart out.

Romy looked around for someone to help her out
of the wedding dress. Stupid thing had two hundred little buttons
up the back, no doubt designed to make sure the bride of the 1880’s
stayed a virgin until well past her wedding night.

“Let me help you with that, honey,” said a voice
from the sidelines. Romy turned around as Carla stepped out of the
shadows and held out a bag. “Franco had some leftover lasagna from
last night, so I brought you some.”

Romy had snuck out of the restaurant the night
before without saying good-bye to Carla. The last thing she’d
needed on top of the buzzing chemistry with Jake was a conversation
about why she didn’t want any help with her magic.

Looked like the conversation had come to her,
and Franco’s lasagna was a very good bribe. “Thanks. How do you not
weigh five hundred pounds with a husband who can cook like
that?”

Carla winked. “Really good exercise. I tell my
Franco he has to help me burn off all the calories he feeds
me.”

Romy snickered. Judging from Carla’s figure, her
husband must be a very happy man.

“The magic helps, too,” Carla said. “Good
spellwork works off a lot of pasta. That’s probably why you’re such
a skinny little thing. Jake tells me you have some pretty nice
firepower.”

“Walk outside with me, please?” No one in Romy’s
life knew about her unfortunate spark-plug alter ego. She intended
to keep it that way.

She led Carla to a patch of grass outside the
theater and sat down. “Look, I appreciate you coming down to see
me, but magic isn’t something I want to be part of my life.”

“It’s been a burden for you; I understand
that.”

Romy felt her temper flare. “Do you? Do you know
what it’s like to wake up in a house full of smoke and know you
probably started another fire? Do you know what it’s like to have
everyone think you did it on purpose? There was a baby sleeping in
one of the houses—the firemen barely got her out.”

“It’s a true crime you were left to deal with
that alone,” Carla said. “But we can’t change the past, and you’re
a grown woman now. Let me show you how to work with your
magic.”

“No. I’m sorry, I don’t know how much clearer I
can be. I don’t want this.” Romy felt miserable, but she was very
clear that magic had no place in her life.

Carla looked off into the street for a moment,
and then spoke softly. “It will get away from you again one day,
mia cara. A moment of great fear, or great emotion, and the fire
will come again.”

Romy shook her head, and tried not to think
about how she’d sparked at Jake when he’d tried to kidnap her. “I
can control it. I have to.”

Two dark-brown eyes drilled at her. “You can’t.
Do you know when I felt my magic most strongly? When I birthed my
babies—it ripped through me. Then about six months after my
youngest was born, a driver almost ran me off the road with my baby
in the back seat. I nearly incinerated him, and I’d had trained
control over my magic for a long time.”

Romy curled up and rested her forehead on her
knees. Magic had taken every good thing from her life. If Carla
spoke the truth, it denied her any kind of normal future as
well.

“Are you going to feel sorry for yourself all
day, or are you going to quit sulking and learn?”

Anger lifted Romy’s head just in time to see a
dancing ball of light float into the air off Carla’s palm. “Fire
magic doesn’t have to burn and destroy. It can be a light in the
dark, or warmth in the cold. That’s up to you.”

Romy stared at the ball of light. “My magic
isn’t soft and sweet, Carla. I make fireballs, not sweet little
globes.”

Carla’s face stormed in temper. She reached one
hand to the sky and let loose a blast of flame. “There’s nothing
tame about my magic either, girl. Let’s get that straight right
from the beginning. I can match you in power—now you learn to match
me in skill.”

Then her eyes softened. “Sorry, we fire witches
tend to have hair-trigger tempers. Your magic can be many things,
cara mia; you just need to learn to work with it, not against
it.”

Romy couldn’t name all the feelings clawing at
her throat. “And how exactly do you tame a firebolt into a
well-behaved ball of light?”

Carla twinkled. “You already know. You think you
only know how to fight your magic, but your soul knows how to dance
with it as well. You only need to go inside and listen.”

Romy could feel her eyebrows hit her hairline.
No bleeding way she was trying some kind of inner dance with a
fireball.

“Magic is instinctive, like genetic memory.”
Carla made another ball of light and floated it to Romy’s hand.
“You know how to do this; you simply need to remember. It’s in your
blood.”

Her Gran had said the same thing.
Go with the
magic, Romy-girl. Your heart knows what to do
.

Romy brushed away the heartache. All she’d
managed to do was get herself locked up for starting fires in her
sleep.

Carla touched her hand. “Do you know Tabletop
Rock?”

“Sure.” It was hard to miss, a mini-mountain in
the distance on her way to the Center.

“Meet me at the top tomorrow morning at nine,
and we’ll do some work together.”

“I thought you said magic was instinct.”

“It is, but you’ve been fighting what you know
for a long time. Your instincts are going to be a little wobbly for
a while.”

Romy was afraid to ask. “And why are we meeting
at the top of a big rock in the middle of nowhere?”

Carla grinned. “Because wobbly instincts in a
fire witch usually mean leaving scorch marks in unintended places.
Tabletop Rock gets hit by lightning on a regular basis, so you
probably can’t do too much damage. Wear tight-fitting
clothing.”

Now there was a comforting thought. Not.

“Be there, or I’ll track you down.” Carla stood
up. “I’ll take you back after so Franco can feed you.”

As Carla walked off, it took Romy a minute to
identify the most uncomfortable sensation crawling up her insides.
It was hope.

Jake leaned on Romy’s station wagon and waited
for her to come out of rehearsal. He hoped the proposal he was
about to make was a good idea. For some reason he didn’t want to
examine too closely, it mattered what she thought of the work he
did.

Her eyes changed from amused to suspicious as
soon as she saw him. “What is this, Gang-up-on-Romy Day?”

That wasn’t the start he’d been aiming for. “I
was hoping I could get you to come on a field trip with me.”

“Does it involve big, flat rocks?”

“No, a cute seven-year-old. Why?” He took the
stack of papers out of her arms. His mother had tried to teach him
manners, and occasionally he remembered them.

“Carla was by earlier. She wants me to go do
magic lessons with her on Tabletop Rock tomorrow. I thought you
might be here to make sure I went.”

Go Carla, thought Jake. “Nope. Carla can handle
that all by herself. Are you going to go willingly?”

Romy sighed. “She’s bribing me with food before
and after. Does anyone ever say no to Franco’s food?”

“No one I know. So, will you come on a ride with
me? I have a check-in to do.”

He loved how Romy’s face could express three
different things at once. Right now curiosity warred with suspicion
and just a touch of fear. Only the fear confused him.

“What’s a check-in?”

“As I told you before, sometimes Sentinel places
young witches in safer homes. I rescued a sweet girl named Jolie a
couple of months ago, and I need to stop in and see how she’s
doing. I thought you might like to see the system working right for
a change.”

She was wavering, he could tell. Time to play
his ace. “I had Franco pack me some takeout.”

Romy laughed. “I should just run away with
Franco and eliminate all the middle men. Fine, I’ll go, but we take
my wheels. I don’t trust either of us on your bike for the time
being.”

Ah, that’s why she’d looked a little scared.
Fair enough. It was hard to eat on a motorbike anyhow. “That works.
It’s not too far away. You want to drive, or eat?”

She rolled her eyes and tossed her keys in the
air. “Women can multitask—I’ll drive and eat.”

She wasn’t kidding. Jake watched in appreciation
as Romy drove and twirled fettuccine on a plastic fork without
looking. “That’s impressive.”

“Community theater means a lot of driving to
different gigs. I’m always eating in the car. It was either starve,
eat nothing but burgers, or learn how to eat semi-civilized food on
the run.”

Girls. What was wrong with eating burgers all
the time? “So what exactly is community theater?”

Romy grinned. “It’s what happens when you cross
amateurs who think they might like to act with a few bitter old
professionals who are past their prime.”

“And which are you?”

She threatened to impale him with her plastic
fork. “Be nice. I’d be somewhere in the middle, I guess. I did some
professional gigs, but I never had the talent to be a star. They
like me here because I’m adaptable—I can handle pretty much any
role.”

“What role are you in right now?”

She spoke around a mouthful of food.
“Annie.”

Well, the red hair matched, but other than that,
Romy didn’t seem like great casting for a tap-dancing orphan girl.
“Community theaters don’t use kids?”

She looked confused, and then laughed. “We use
kids all the time, but I’m not that Annie; we’re doing Annie Get
Your Gun.”

That was more like it, although he figured Romy
was plenty armed and dangerous already without adding a gun to the
mix. “How’d you end up an actress?”

“I was lucky. A theater in Albuquerque needed a
redhead for a bit part right after I got out of juvie. Darlene
hooked me up. I said my two lines and schlepped enough stuff
backstage that they kept me around.”

Jake realized they were almost at the turn-off
for Jolie’s house. “Take a right, here.”

Romy ate her last bite and tossed the carton in
the back seat. “So can you tell me anything about this little
girl?”

“Some. She set off a Sentinel alert a couple of
months ago. When I went to find her, she was living with her
father. He took her to Vegas a lot.”

“You took her away from a biological parent
because he gambled?”

Jake tried to stick to the facts, and not let
his temper out. “No. Jolie has precognition—she sees bits of the
future. When she saw, and he won, he treated her like a princess.
When she didn’t see, and he lost, he locked her in a closet. She’d
been in there for two days when I found her.”

“I’ve heard worse, but I’m glad you got her out.
How’s she doing now?”

“That’s what we’re here to see. She lives in the
green house with the big black and white cat sitting on the
fence.”

As they climbed out of the car, a girl with wild
curls came running out of the house. “See Molly, I told you he was
coming,” she shouted over her shoulder.

An older woman appeared at the door and waved at
Jake. “So you did, Jolie. Invite our guests in, and we can feed
them some of those cookies you worked so hard on.”

Jolie grabbed Romy’s hand. “I saw you were
coming, so Molly let me make chocolate chip cookies. I did it
almost all by myself, she just had to put them in the oven. I
forgot about the egg, so they’re a little crumbly, but Molly says
anything with chocolate in it must be good. I hope you like
them.”

Jake grinned. Yup, Jolie was still the minor
tornado he’d rescued two months ago. He could tell she was nothing
like what Romy had been expecting. Not a surprise. Most abused kids
were pretty withdrawn and suspicious, at least for a while. Jolie
had grabbed onto the chance for a new life with both hands.

He looked over at Molly. “How’s she doing?”

She grinned. “Can’t you tell? I never get a word
in edgewise, and my kitchen looks like the Flour Wars happened in
there this morning.”

He gave her shoulders a squeeze. “You’re loving
it, aren’t you.” It wasn’t a question.

“What’s not to love? She’s adorable, always
entertaining, and she can warn me when I’m about to burn dinner or
adopt a new cat.”

Jake laughed. “What’s the story with the cat? I
saw him sitting on the fence outside.”

Molly shrugged. “He won’t come in yet, but he
sits on that fence every afternoon and waits for Jolie to come home
from school. She named him Tux because of his colors. I figure one
stray or two, not much difference.”